Happy Halloween!!!!

We had another great Halloween here. Both kids dressed up as completely adorable Peter Pans. They were arguing about who would get to be Peter Pan since September. We tried convincing Erin to be Tinkerbell or Jeffrey to be a pirate, but neither of them would have anything to do with it. So matching Peter Pans we had. Noni made their costumes and Grandpa made some little swords to go along with them.

We got great use out of the costumes. They wore them to the library for their "costume party" (which was really nothing more than story time in Halloween costumes). They were so adorable sitting next to each other playing on the computers before story time started. Erin got to wear her costume to church on Sunday and visited a local nursing home with her Church School. And then on Halloween Erin had a Halloween Party at school and wore her costume. Jeffrey and I were invited to come along for the party and he wore his costume as well.

This was the first year that Erin carved (with help of course) her own pumpkin. She picked out a little pumpkin when we visited the Apple Orchard with her school back in September. It was still good for carving over the weekend. Friends of ours had a pumpkin carving party. Erin helped to dig out the guts and then told mommy how the face should look. I even let her help cut out the eyes and mouth. In my completely unbiased opinion it was totally adorable. The kids had a blast just playing. They rolled down the hill, played on the swing set, rode in a wagon for hours. They were filthy and exhausted when we got home, but it was great watching them just play.

Erin's school party was quite adorable. They had a little lunch and then sat in a circle to sing songs for us, "Twinkle Twinkle," "Eensy Weensy Spider," and a couple of cute Halloween songs. Then they all got instruments and marched outside in a parade for the moms and dads (and fussy little brothers). Erin played the spoons. Outside they played games. Erin liked the fall relay race the best. They had to jump over a hay bale, jump into hoops, toss the hoop over a cone and then ride trikes to the finish line. Erin loved it so much she fibbed that she didn't get a turn just to take a second run (we had a discussion about this in the car on the ride home). They also tried eating doughnuts on strings without their hands and had a pinata to hit around.

For trick-or-treating we headed into town to hang out at Mr. Sid's house (our usual Halloween hangout). I took a few pictures of the kids sitting with the pumpkins and playing with their swords outside the house before we left. Let me tell you the swords were a huge hit. And I was quite proud at how careful Jeffrey was with his (in general). Once in town the kids had the run of Sid's lawn. He goes all out with his decorations. There's a graveyard, lots of ghosts and skeletons hanging in strobe lights. Colored flood lights lighting the graveyard. The biggest hit was the smoke machine that came out of the coffin. The kids would take their swords and battle away the smoke. With the colored flood lights behind them they kinda showed up as Peter Pan shadows battling the smoke. It was very very cool.

We did take the kids out trick-or-treating. This was Jeffrey's first time really getting into it, and old hat for Erin. She knew exactly what to do and ran from door to door always saying trick-or-treat and holding out her bag. Jeffrey would get over excited and scream "Trick-or-treat....Goody Bag!!!!" while shoving his bag right into the air for that precious candy. Then they'd yell thank you while running back down to us. Apparently someone as school taught Erin the famous trick-or-treating saying "Trick or Treat, Smell my Feet, Give me Something Good to Eat." She would walk between houses singing it at the top of her lungs. As far as I know she didn't share that at any doorways, but entirely possible. I tried blaming it on her daddy (known to share such silly knowledge) but she admitted she learned it at school.

So all in all we had a great evening. Jeffrey helped the teens hand out candy at Mr. Sid's when we got back and Erin helped Ms. Lynn bring out goodies to snack on. Jeffrey probably consumed 5-6 lollipops throughout the evening, and Erin had her fair share of chips and other snacks. I'm just so glad we got to spend such a fun night together as a family with some friends.