Halloween

At the beginning of October, I got an urge to decorate for Halloween, so we busted out all our things that we've purchased on clearance over the years, as well as some gifted decorations from Lea and Shayne.  And, I did a Pinterest project that I pinned last year: I decorated our door to look like a monster. 

Rachel loved our light up Jack-O-Lanterns all over the house. If they weren't lit/turned on, she would walk up to them and point, saying, "A Punkin', a punkin'." Until we would turn them on. She got VERY upset if we missed one, like our Halloween Village funeral parlor. She got OBSESSED with pumpkins. She'd get excited seeing them. In fact, she's been watching me upload pictures for this post, and has been excitedly pointing and saying, "A punkin! A punkin!"

When I was in high school, I baby-sat for a couple (who later gave me my first job at their dinner theater), who really got into Halloween. Julie would spend weeks making these amazing costumes for her girls, herself, and her husband. And I loved watching it all unfold. I would watch their kids so they could throw their annual Halloween Party. It was a big deal, and their friends always came and dressed up, and partied all night. And I decided that I wanted to do something similar when I grew up. We did Halloween parties with Brian's old roommates and their wives every year until everyone moved away for grad school and jobs. When we moved into our house, I couldn't wait to get these parties started and make it into an annual neighborhood thing that everyone wanted to attend (It's always more idealized in your head). Last year was our first year doing one, and one of our friends that came last year told us back in September that they were excited for us to do it again. We picked out our weekend for it back in September. 

I loved my invitation that I made this year. I felt so clever:

Finally, the night arrived. I did a photobooth this year. Maybe next year, I'll have a better set-up. Most of our friends came dressed up. Zak and Sam's costume was a favorite of mine: 

 And one of them kindly took Brian and my picture:

 And Brian colored my hair for the occasion:

We did a Mummy wrap again.  

 We played games, at yummy food, and I made everyone take a group picture:

 It was fun having an excuse to get to know our neighbors a little better, and I love that Halloween gives me an excuse. 

On the Monday before Halloween, we carved pumpkins for Halloween. And Michael picked popcorn for the treat. It was perfect. 

 Rachel didn't get very excited about the whole thing until she recognized the Jack-O-Lantern face. Then, she excitedly repeated, "A Punkin! A punkin!"

The day before Halloween, I was out for a walk with Sam. She had mentioned weeks before that she had wanted to throw a Halloween Party for the preschool kids in our neighborhood so that Eva, who is doing online preschool, could get together with her friends and wear her costume. That hadn't happened. I'm not sure how it happened, but as we were walking, we decided that we could still throw that party. So, within two hours, we invited guests, came up with games, made cupcakes, and prepared a craft for a very last minute, spontaneous party. And, it was a roaring success. And it wasn't stressful at all because there were no expectations. 

Here are the kids making the witch craft. Thank you Michael's preschool teacher for the idea!

 And I did a photobooth again.  I thought moms might want a nice-ish picture of their kids in their Halloween Costumes. Everyone insisted on taking their picture with their witch.

 Brian's work always throws a Halloween Party during the last few hours of work on Halloween. There's a chili cook-off, costume contest, office decorating contest, and this year, they even did a pumpkin carving contest. The prizes were really good this year, so Brian entered his pumpkin and on the Monday before Halloween, we went to Provo to decorate Brian's office. We picked up Brian and went to lunch first:

Then, full and happy, we got to work. 

They were having a contest for the most kid friendly office, and so I thought a monster door would be perfect:

 On Halloween, we went to Brian's work and went trick-or-treating at all the offices, ate some chili and treats, and then waited for them to announce the winners. Brian and I are not really that competitive. At least, so we thought. We got a little competitive over this whole Halloween work contest thing--but very passively. At least on the surface. We won Best Group! Yay!

And then they started announcing who won the office contests. We were surprised when this happened: 

And the office that got "Most Kid Friendly" was the office my kids were too scared to go in! Ha ha! It was like the game Apples to Apples--you just can't tell how the judges will take something!

 This year, I decided to make kettle corn popcorn to hand out to trick-or-treaters. I've really been trying to cut back on sweets and treats, and I didn't want to be stuck with lots of candy (or spend the money on it). Plus, I figured that kids might like to have something different. And since we live in the day that we live, I made sure that each back of popcorn had a label identifying which house it came from.

A week before Halloween, our trusty Stir-crazy broke. It was a tragedy. But, that just meant that we had to buy a new one. It got it's maiden pop session on Halloween.

 That's a lot of popcorn! I was so grateful that Lea helped me bag and label these things! It took FOREVER, and I don't think I'll ever do it again!

We had a great Halloween, and despite all our Halloween Happenings, this was the least stressful Halloween for us because our costumes were super easy--that's the beauty of fleece and caveman style dressing. We got so many compliments on our Flintstone's Theme.

 I debate and debate about what we can dress up as for Halloween. This year, I considered a Twenties theme, the bad witches and wizards from Harry Potter (the Malfoys, anyone?). We even joked about doing Saturday's Warrior. So, why Flintstones? It's not even a favorite TV show of mine. But, last year, we realized that we had the perfect in-house Pebbles. I was sad that I had thought of it too late. But as luck would have it, she was even more perfect for the part this year:

We hope that everyone else had a safe and fun Halloween.