Trick-or-Treat!

On Halloween night, Mike took the three kids out trick-or-treating. They brought Sammy back after a few houses, and he helped me answer the door while Mike and the girls went to the rest of the neighborhood. Every time the doorbell would ring, Sam would run to the door, and while I was giving the kids candy, he would run out onto the porch and point to the house across the street with the amazing Halloween decorations and yell, "Look! A Spooky! A Spooky!". Every time! Hehe. The girls came back with quite a stash of candy!

Halloween Fun at School

Nora and Evie's school Halloween parties turned out to be on the same day (actual Halloween) at the same time! Luckily, Mike was able to work from home that day, so he went to Evie's party, and I went to Nora's party, which I was helping with as a room-parent.

Here are the pictures Mike took of Evie's little Halloween party. They had the parents come with treats and line up around the driveway, and the kids did a little trick-or-treat down the line. All the little kids were so cute in their costumes!

Class photo

The first event I went to for Nora was the elementary school Halloween parade. They make big rows of chairs in the gym/lunchroom for the parents to sit, and then the parade winds its way by all the rows. 

Here is Nora's class coming! Her teacher was dressed as Wonder Woman.

Little bunny Nora

Later in the afternoon, they had the class Halloween parties.

Class picture making funny faces!

There were four stations that the kids rotated through - Halloween Bingo, decorating a sugar cookie, crafts and Halloween stories.

Here is the Bingo station

Decorating sugar cookies

I was in charge of the craft station. I got some little Halloween shapes that were brightly colored, and then painted black on top, so when the kids drew on them with the sticks, it would scratch off the black and show the colors underneath where they drew. The kids had a great time with it, and some had a hard time figuring out what made the colors show up. Hehe.

Nora picked a bat shape

Here is the Halloween story station. The other room-mom had a really cute Raggedy Ann costume. I wore my pirate costume, but forgot to get any pictures with me in them.

The girls both had a wonderful time at their school parties, and Sam had a fun time with Grandma! 

Book Club - The Picture of Dorian Gray

Since the first Tuesday of November was election day, the November book club was held a week early, which happened to be the day before Halloween. The book chosen for the occasion was a perfect fit, being the creepy classic "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde.

Bethany printed out this portrait and put it in a frame

At the party there was a cup of markers and paint pens next to it so people could add "sinful details".

There were wonderfully spooky decorations, and a delicious Halloween inspired menu.

Bethany made this cool photo op set up, so everyone could get some portraits taken

Freaky!

There was a great discussion about the book, the author, and various film adaptations of the book. 

Pumpkin Carving

On the Monday before Halloween, we carved pumpkins for our family home evening activity.

Ah, scooping out the pumpkins. It always makes me think of Kate and how much she loves pumpkin innards.

Evie kept going through the bowl of the things I had scooped out of the pumpkin. I asked her what she was doing, and she said she had to do her work.

After a moment of observation, I realized that her work meant picking out all the seeds and putting them in a bag.

I picked out a pattern for Sam's pumpkin online that I thought was cool, then we asked the girls what kind of a pumpkin they wanted to do. Evie said a kitty, and Nora said a dog, so we made our own patterns for those ones.

Nora measured all the pumpkins

Nora helped carve her pumpkin. I carved the face, and she did most of the ears.

Glowing pumpkins - the one on the left is a bat in a moon

The result of all of Evie's hard work!

October Birthdays

We had fun celebrating Kate and Dad's birthdays. Mom ordered a cake with a haunted house on it. Apparently the bakery wrote down the wrong style name for the cake on the order form, so when my mom went to pick it up it looked a lot different than she was expecting. We decided that it looked like a Spanish mission style building. I love the happy ghosts and pumpkins.

The birthday kids

I love the pug bag Beth made for Kate. Hehe.

Family Halloween Party

The kids always look forward to helping with the annual family Halloween party at our house. Beth did most of the decorations, and they were beautiful, with just the right touch of spookiness.

We also made some big spider webs to hang on the wall. Later on, we found some "very hungry caterpillar" wall decals that were still hanging up from Sam's birthday party - the caterpillar and the butterfly. Evie said that we should put them in the spider web! So sad, but so funny! 

We also made these glowing ghosts by putting glow sticks in balloons and drawing on a face. You couldn't really see them glowing unless the lights were off, so the kids kept turning the lights off all through the party.

The kids read stories and did a craft with Grammy while the rest of us finished setting up

It is always fun to see what costumes everyone comes up with!

Dad and Mom were a wizard and witch

Beth was Medusa and Reece was Zeus. These costumes were so creative!

 A close-up of the snakes in Beth's hair, and of her cool face paint

Kate was a very cute tooth fairy

Mike and I were pirates, Nora was a rabbit, Evie was Snow White and Sam was a hamburger

Marolynn was a nanny

Sam wanted a picture with her too!

Beth did special make-up and face painting for Nora and Evie

Making some soup

Our Halloween spread:

Monster mouths

Jack-o-lantern oranges

Bone breadsticks

lime and orange sherbet drinks - each cup had a different face

Sam was most excited about the drink!

Sam with Aunt Kate - by the way, it means he really loves you if he pinches your face!

For our craft, we decorated masks

Sam's pose made me laugh. I took a picture then helped him push in his chair.

Sam kept admiring Grammy's beads

 So she let him try them on

Sam decided that the mask needed more work

Nora's finished butterfly mask

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Sam's finished mask

Evie's finished kitty mask

For dessert, we dipped apple slices into caramel, and then into various toppings

Then the grown-ups decorated their masks

I didn't get a picture of Kate's finished mask, but it was beautiful (and purple!)

 Sam was so excited about his mask that two days later, he wore it for a long time before we had to leave for church.