Halloween Week

Okay, so this is going to be a long post with a lot of pictures, but let's just get Halloween over with so we can move on to better holidays. I'm not a fan of Halloween - I will not elaborate, my post from 2008 still stands. We started the week off with pumpkin carving - not my favorite - but it turned out better than I thought it would.

Dallin tried something a bit more complicated this year. It's a howling wolf, in case you can't tell (yes, it was one of those traced patterns).

Can you tell which is Leon and which is the Jack-o-Lantern?
Cameron designed and cut his own pumpkin this year - he was so proud and I think it's super cute.

Landon also wanted one of the traced patterns, so guess who got to carve his pumpkin - yup - me.

Jayden went the traditional route, too, and designed and carved his own. I think I'm partial to the kid-made pumpkins rather than the fancy patterned ones (don't tell Dallin).

Since Halloween was on Sunday, we had a couple of days for celebrating. We started Friday off with the Kindergarten party - good times. Landon's teacher is such a good sport to dress up like that - I like her. (Oh, and the Egyptian princess next to Landon has a crush on him - it's cute.)

After the Kindergarten party it was time for the much-anticipated school costume parade.

Later that afternoon it was another class party - 5th grade. The 5th graders planned their own games and activities, so it's their own fault that this doughnut game ended with a lot of sticky hair - gross!

Saturday there was a neighborhood party (no pics of that) and trick-or-treating in the evening. Halloween is one of my least favorite holidays, but trick-or-treating makes up for it. I love walking around the neighborhood, running into other parents, and seeing the pure joy on kids' faces as they collect their loot. Jayden wanted to be "Willy Wonka" this year, which wasn't all that easy to come by, but we did pretty well. (The kids at school thought he was the "Mad Hatter", though. Hmm.)

Dallin was a bit undecided about dressing up, but in the end chose to be a "Jedi". I had to manufacture his costume myself, which didn't exactly turn out the way Dallin had imagined, but I say it was good enough. He's at the age where he didn't want to dress up at school, but wasn't too old to go out for the candy.

Cameron knew far enough in advance that he wanted to be a "Storm Trooper" and I was able to watch for a good deal on his costume - much better than trying to make one. Landon's "Darth Vader" wasn't too hard to pull off, though. As I thought about it, we had 3 Star Wars characters and Willy Wonka - almost a theme but not quite.

Of course, Halloween wouldn't be what it is without all of the candy. I'd say they got a fair amount - gotta love it.