Halloween 2011

Halloween is kind of like a never-ending holiday, I think.

And I'm kind of bah-humbug about it too...

Good thing my kids have their dad - Andy picks up all my slack and always makes things fun and festive for them.

Our festivities this year started with a pumpkin-carving extravaganza that spilled over into two nights!  YEA!  (two nights to clean up pumpking guts... ugh.  See?  BAH-HUMBUG!)

After I spent a few hours scouring all the grocery stores in our area for some pumpkins, I finally found a couple for my family.  (seriously, where were all the pumpkins this year?!?)  I took them home, and they got busy carving.

Big ones,

itty-bitty ones,

and medium sized ones.

Masses, and masses of pumpkin guts, all over the table and floor.

Cayden collecting pumpkin seeds out of the garbage.

Yuck.  They went right back into the garbage when he went to bed...

Cayden bought this little guy himself when we visited the fall festival, over a month before this.

Mason took the opportunity to color all over her pumpkin, and herself.

Lovely.

Colten had the right idea...

he and I hung out by the fireplace, drinking diet coke.

We actually had SNOW the day we carved pumpkins.

Crazy weather for this time of the year in Virginia.

I loved it, though.

Our kids donned their costumes three times this year (see, neverending holiday!):

once for the trunk-or-treat at church, then for the Monster Mash at their school, and for trick-or-treating on the actual Halloween.

Here they are in all their finery:

We had Emperor Palpatine, a bat (with cat ears, couldn't actually find bat ears...), a frog, Minnie Mouse and a witch.

I got to shuttle the little ones in the stroller while Andy chased after the big kids (I had already gotten my run in, right before trick-or-treating, HA!).

Colten didn't love his first Halloween.  He was kind of annoyed by the costume (which Cayden wore for his second Halloween, 8 years ago...), but we had a pretty chilly night, so he made peace with it.

The big kids certainly knew what to do and raced from house to house.  Mason did a few houses, and then had be coerced to leave the stroller.  Colten just sat along for the ride, until we got to our last house and we took him up to trick-or-treat at one house for his first Halloween.

He sure loved that candy.

And now we have way too much!