Saturday, November 5, 2011

Halloween Festivities

Halloween seemed to be more of a week long celebration than just a day. The Sunday before we carved/decorated pumpkins with my parents. My parents always do such cute pumpkins. My dad tries to get a pumpkin with a "scar" that he can incorporate into his face. This year was no exception.
Since our kids are so little and can't really help carve at all, we let them decorate their pumpkins this year. They used paint, glitter, feathers and rhinestones. They turned out very unique! But the kids loved doing it and I didn't have to clean and cut both of their pumpkins, which honestly is not one of my favorite things to do.
Aren't they gorgeous?! I actually didn't carve my pumpkin this year either. Brayden and Tawny inspired me to be creative so I used rhinestones to decorate mine.The other great thing about not carving our pumpkins is that they don't rot before Halloween. And because they didn't rot I'm able to bake them and freeze enough pumpkin puree to cover my baking for the next year. I did two of the pumpkins today and got over 18 cups of puree. And it taste so much better than the canned stuff.


On the Friday before Halloween Greg and I hosted an adult Halloween costume party. It was so much fun! We had awesome company, ate great food and had such a food time talking and playing games. I made a spiderweb cheesecake that turned out so cute I had to include a picture. And according to ever there, it was super tasty too! (I don't know because I don't like cheesecake).On Saturday we had out ward "trunk or treat", which we did inside the church this year. The primary was in charge of decorations and all the games, so Saturday was pretty busy for me, but it all turned out really well. All the kids seemed to have a lot of fun, except Ethan. He did not love all the people in their costumes. Greg finally had to take him home early.

I told Brayden to give me his "serious football face"
Tawny wanted to be a pirate just like last year. She loved her costume that much.We started out Halloween day with spooky pancakes. They're even healthy whole wheat pancakes and the kids don't even notice because they're in cute shapes. I've found I can get them to eat almost anything if it looks cool.
They do a costume parade at Brayden's school so he got to wear his costume to school that day. Of course Tawny had to wear hers too. They even let Tawny walk with Brayden, which I really appreciated and she loved!

For dinner I let the kids decorate their own pizzas. We do this every so often and the kids really love it. This time I cooked their pizzas using our skookie pans (individual sized cast iron pans). They were so much tastier! The bottoms got nice and crispy but the rest was soft. As you can tell, pizza decorating takes a high level of concentration!Brayden made a face.


Tawny went a little more abstract. (She said hers was a face too, but I just don't see it)
After dinner we went trick or treating. This was the first year Brayden or Tawny have actually gone trick or treating. I was too busy chasing them around the neighborhood to take any pictures. Apparently our neighborhood is one of the most popular in Blythe for trick or treating because it was packed! The kids got so much candy, more than they will ever eat. They really had a great time. I'm glad that the next holiday is Thanksgiving because it is one of my favorites. I love that it reminds me daily to have an attitude of gratitude. It is so much easier to have a great day when I am constantly on the lookout for blessings. November is going to be a great month!

No comments: