Halloween Happenings

Another Halloween is in the books.  This year we actually got the costumes out of the way relatively early for the kids.  Carter and I got his in Target at least a couple weeks ago after he'd stuck to the same character for a couple months, and after much back and forth with Jacob, I happened to see a costume in two different stores that I thought might work for him, and sure enough, he liked it.  Cue a perfectly timed 25% off coupon from the Halloween store right when we were ready to buy, and we were done.  Despite getting that out of the way pretty well ahead of time, everything else ended up pretty last minute.  I didn't end up doing a costume this year (orange sequined cami and pumpkin earrings were as good as it got), and Craig grabbed an old store-bought costume from storage yesterday morning.  I sent some donuts with Jacob for his school party, and never ended up making anything to share at work because no one planned anything.  Even still, the day before I busied myself by making apple chips and corn chowder, so it felt a little like most Halloweens when I scramble to make something!

Sunday afternoon we also went to get our pumpkins.  Nothing like the last minute, eh?  We didn't get them at the pumpkin patch when we went because it was busy and we were in a bit of a rush.  But I always know that a place near us is essentially an indoor pumpkin patch and works well on those cold, rainy weekend days.  Jacob had practice that afternoon so he and Craig just came for a bit to put in input on a pumpkin shape and, apparently, take a picture like this.

Carter pretty quickly picked out his pumpkin, and I love the look he has on his face here.  He wasn't being grumpy, I promise, but the look cracks me up!

See, happy face two seconds later!

He also wanted to do lots of the face cutouts...

Jacob (and his slushie) got in on the action, too...

After that, Craig and Jacob left, and Carter and I stuck around to do a few more things and make our pumpkin (and apple) purchases.  Isn't he the cutest Frankenstein ever?

I let Carter pick two rides to go on, knowing how much he loves them...

The gun was just f or looks, and the ride itself controlled any raising or lowering...but he loved it anyway.

This train was pretty funny, as it was safari-themed.  Notice the white monkey on the back.  The whole train had fiberglass animals all over it, and the buttons in front of the kids played animal noises!  He really seemed to enjoy it.

Usually I take one or two artsy shots here, but since the vast floor of pumpkins was pretty depleted this year, I just ended up with this one, because I was obsessed with these white and orange pumpkins!

Carter was cute as we walked around, getting himself "stuck" among the pumpkins and trying to find his way out.  Silly boy.

He was trying to lift them, too, of course...

We picked out a couple pumpkins and among my other kitchen exploits on Sunday I managed to dig out all of the seeds and get the little one carved.  Jacob did scoop out part of the smaller one, but he tired of that pretty quickly.  Carter wanted a scary face in his pumpkin and that was easy enough to figure out.  But Jacob said he wanted a "KISS" pumpkin (as in, the band) so he wanted a star over one eye like one of the band members.  He wasn't picky beyond that, but I could not think up a face that looked like anything but a bunch of random shapes, so the big one didn't get carved until I got home on Monday.  By then I had decided to do a classic pumpkin face (triangles and a happy mouth with teeth) and just replace one eye with a star. 

I should back up to Friday afternoon.  Craig ended up taking the Knighthawks mascot to Jacob's school (lucky kid, huh?), which was quite a turn of events in comparison to the canceled Halloween at his school last year.  They didn't have anything but "fall fun" events last year, so as not to exclude those who did not celebrate, which was a major bummer.  This year he's moved up to the grades 3-5 school and all was well, though I can't help but wonder if his old school did anything this year and what will happen when the driving force moves up to third grade.  I decided at the last minute to pick up Carter at daycare around 2:30 to bring him back to my office for trick-or-treating.  We did that last year and it was fun, and since I wasn't that busy, I decided we could do it again.  We wandered through the building with other co-workers' kids, and Carter got a pretty significant haul.  He wouldn't have even needed to go out at night and he'd still be eating candy for months.

But, given the fact we spend money on these costumes, I prefer they use them as much as possible, so trick-or-treating it was.  Sort of.  But first, pictures...

My little Spider-man

Jacob ended up being a zombie football player, which I think suited him well.  The helmet was weird and ill-fitting, but it had brains sticking out of the one side.  The version of the costume from Target had no helmet but did have a football protruding from the chest. 

I took the kids out and we started across the street.  Jacob insisted he was only going to do one (!) house and that was it.  And sure enough, he did it and went home, despite my encouraging him to stay.  Carter only made it through about five more houses before he was done and started to get shy and threenager-ish at the door, so we went home.  I don't know what his issue was, though it could have been the cold, or his difficulties with the bag he insisted on using (with gloves on, it was extra hard to hold it properly), or just that it had already been a long day and he had tons of treats at home he'd rather be eating.  When we got home, Jacob and Craig went back out and sped through our entire street pretty quickly.  Back at home we barely had any trick-or-treaters, which means we have a ton of candy left over.  Our neighborhood is getting to be more of a bummer every year.  I'll write more about that soon, with my general thoughts on Halloween in our family.  But long story short, I was glad Jacob reconsidered, though I was annoyed he wouldn't go with his brother, and when I added in Carter's quick exit, I found myself questioning why we bother buying costumes or candy at all.

But when I asked them this morning, it appears both of the kids had fun, and I guess that's all that matters.