Sunday, November 1, 2009

the one where we try to be spooky

We have a family tradition of carving pumpkins the night before Halloween. Friday ~ ahem, which was the night before Halloween ~ it occurred to me that we never bought pumpkins. I'm really on top of stuff, I tell you. So on the way home from spending the afternoon with Suzanne, we stopped by the grocery store to buy some pumpkins. The only ones left were quite large! This is nice except they have very thick rinds, which proved to be somewhat of a challenge later on.

One thing led to another and before I knew it the clock was saying 8 o'clock. We still hadn't started mutilating those orange beasts. I talked the girls into doing it in the morning. Heather was trying to be a die-hard and wanted to stay up Friday night and get the job done. Bless her heart, her eyelids were already giving away that her energy was just about over for the day. Finally, she agreed.

I tell you what! That was one of the best calls! In the morning we had lots of time to work on the pumpkins. I wasn't rushing them to finish so they can get in bed. No one was cranky because they were ready for bed. I cut the tops off for them and then let them have at it. I supervised, but not too closely so I didn't bug them about the mess they were making. It was joyous! No fighting even.


And then.

I told the kids the pumpkins had really thick rinds so they'd have to make sure they cut all the way through before attempting to push the pieces out. Stephanie struggled to get the pieces out. By the time she got to the mouth she'd had enough. She was having a meltdown so I sent her away from the table. She gave herself a timeout in the shower. Heather finished the mouth for her sissy.


When all was said and done, I don't even think Stephanie looked at her completed, cleaned up pumpkin until much later in the day.

Still ~ given the opportunity, I'd do this in the morning again anytime.

After waiting a-l-l day, it was finally time to get dressed up. The eyes turned out to play an important role in each costume.








Heather's latest missing tooth (yes, again) was perfect for her costume.


I wouldn't want to meet this witch in a dark alley with a look like that! She's been spending too much time with her teacher mama, I think.


Oh, yeah, we're bad and tough. Ha!








This little monster came to go trick-or-treating with us. He's so ferocious! Watch out, he just might drool on you!


Suzanne and Dustin brought Aiden over to spend his first Halloween with us. He didn't know what was going on, really. But we were glad to be a part of it with him.

After a full evening of trick-or-treating Greg and the kids spread themselves out on the floor for the candy inspection. After the inspection, the girls spent about half an hour making candy trades with each other. It was almost as complicated as the stock market! Greg refereed the candy trading to make sure nobody got swindled. He also told them that since it was Halloween they could eat as much candy as they wanted either before or after dinner. He warned them, though, that if they made themselves sick they had only themselves to blame. They consumed more candy than they normally would have, but still practiced moderation. No belly aches.

2 comments:

Amber said...

Their costumes are PRECIOUS. They look simply amazing.

And I LOVE the jack-o-lanterns!! We're daytime folks, too. Nighttime projects spell disaster around these parts!!

That monster is TOO cute!!

I am Mom said...

cute, cute!