Happy Halloween!

Halloween is always such a fun, festive, memorable time of year! I love the crafts and baking, and all the time spent making fun Halloween costumes. I love the food- pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, Pumpkin Pot Chili for dinner (or Jack-o-Lantern Chili… the kids never agree). I love all of our fun traditions, like Caramel Apple Bar and making gingerbread haunted houses and trips to the pumpkin patch.

This year, we enjoyed all of the same traditions that we usually love. We didn’t to a Halloween Open House like we have often done. It’s just a lot of work and not really worth all the time and money in the end. But we did do our other normal traditions and added a service project as well.

A few favorite highlights…

We visited the pumpkin patch. There is always so, so much to do at this place and we all had a blast.

Our kids LOVE service projects so I am always thinking of something else we can do. This year we bought a bunch of Halloween prizes, treats, games, and other little trinkets, along with Halloween candy. We packed everything up into festive little bags- about 30 in all- and took them to the local hospital. This way, kids that are sick, injured, hospitalized, or in the ER on Halloween will still have a little treat bag. The kids loved this! They asked if we can do it again next year, but they want to take treat bags to a homeless shelter in addition to the hospital.

Of course, Trick or Treating is always a highlight! This year our Trick or Treat Line-Up included Taylor Swift (Brenna), Harry Potter (Joshua), a cute cowgirl (Maddie), a garbage truck with real headlights (Braden), a baby dragon (Asher), a little froggy (Jacob), and a cuddly lion (Drew).

The kids all looked SO cute! Each costume was just perfect for each one of them! Brenna looked beautiful as Taylor Swift and Maddie was the most adorable cowgirl ever. Joshua, with his long hair and blue eyes and round face, looked just like Harry Potter from Sorcerer’s Stone. Braden’s garbage truck took so long to make, but he loved it and he looked awesome. The little guys were darling. Asher was perfect as a baby dragon because he always pretends to be that anyway. Jacob looked so cute in his froggy costume and I loved that he chose it himself. Baby Drew wore the same lion costume that his three older brothers all wore when they were tiny. It’s cute and warm and cuddly and seeing another baby son wear it really brought back memories for me.

Jacob was so funny tonight! I’d planned on him being the cute monkey in our costume box, but he dug through and found an old, forgotten frog costume.

“Soggy! Soggy!” he squealed and his mind was made up. He wanted a be a froggy!

He was also cute while Trick or Treating. He was very, very somber and he gave out candy rather than accepting it. At each house, with his binky in his mouth and his brown eyes so serious, he would reach into his own bag of candy, fish out a treat, and solemnly offer it to the person handing candy out to all the other kids. No one knew what to make of him. They would chuckle, accept the treat, and then drop it into his bag again along with another piece of candy. So he did get candy, even though he kept trying to give all of his candy away. He even said “tink oo” (thank you) a few times.

Braden got tons and tons of comments on his costume. It was a hit, just like his robot costume from last year. One man even took pictures and Braden was pretty sure that people were giving him extra candy because they liked his costume so much. (My laptop is not working again, but I will add more pictures once it is!)

The big kids zig-zagged back and forth across the street and hit twice as many houses as the little boys. When the little guys got tired and were too busy eating candy to actually go to the doors anymore, we took them home. I stayed with the four little boys while Rick took the older three kids out for another hour and a half.

I dished up Pumpkin Pot Chili, cornbread, and hot apple cider for the boys. Braden devoured his and asked for seconds. Jacob ate bites, but never finished. Asher pushed his away immediately and said, “No thanks, Mom. I have my own food now.” He gestured to his bag of candy.

Asher did finally toss lots of candy into his chili bowl. He also spit cornbread into Jake’s chili and put gum in his own hair. He has a large bald spot on his head now, where I cut the gum out.

It has been such a fun Halloween weekend, with all the Halloween fun and Jacob’s birthday too! After all the thought, planning, and prep work, I can’t believe that Halloween is actually over now.

Now we can settle in for a nice November. The kids have testing for school, wrestling starts officially, and I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year.

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