Halloween Month

Stores started selling Halloween stuff back in September; it took all the self control I could muster to not start celebrating Halloween until October actually began.  As soon as October was here, I gave the kids a gift with Halloween pjs and a little treat bag.  Every time they wore them throughout the month, they made me so happy! 

 

Ridge’s monster jams quickly became his favorites, even over his fire truck ones.  On several occasions, he objected to me changing him into normal clothes for the day.  He wanted the monsters!

One week for playgroup, we went to the library story time.  It just so happened to be a monster theme that day where they read monster stories, sang monster songs, and did a monster craft!  So perfect for my little Ridgey monster!  We also checked out Halloween books and a Halloween movie to take home and enjoy.

Jade has made a couple close friends at school.  She was dying to invite them over, so we had Olivia and her mom and sister come over for a Halloween-themed play date one afternoon.  The girls dressed up, had monster mouths and popcorn for snack, played a few Halloween games, I read a Halloween book, and then they made mummy pizzas and had bread “bones” for dinner.  Then each of the kids received a treat bag.

 

The treat bags included fake teeth.  Ridge took a little bit to figure them out, but one day when he got them in right, he was pretty excited to come show me!

  

A few days later we pulled out our Halloween décor.  I never realized how little we had until we put it out in our house as opposed to our tiny apartment.  Each week I would take the 40% coupon for Michael’s and select a new item. 

 

Still my favorite decorations are the lanterns from the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets. 

 

Throughout the month we sporadically ate Halloween-themed foods on Halloween plates and cups.  In addition to chili and soups (witches’ brew), we had jack o’ lantern and skeleton sandwiches, “candy corn” chicken Alfredo pizza, jack o’ lantern chicken and cheese quesadillas, Halloween pancakes, pumpkin bisque with pesto and provolone grilled cheese, monster cheeseburgers (thanks to Shannon for the cute idea), and pumpkin cupcakes.  Honestly, I’ve been low on energy this month (I blame it on the pregnancy), so I kept the foods pretty simple. 

  

  

  

We couldn’t help but think of Jade’s friends in Hong Kong who we’ve spent the last few Halloweens with.  Jade enjoyed writing cards and putting together treat bags to send off to them. 

Then one glorious weekend, some of our dearest friends drove up from Arlington, VA to visit.  The aforementioned, Shannon, is a fellow Halloween lover, so we had to throw in some themed treats, foods, and games for our kids! 

  

After making the below sandwich cutouts, Cody couldn’t bear to see the rest of the bread wasted, so he made some sort of pile of bread, meat, and cheese concoction for his sandwich.  It was hilarious to watch him eat it.

  

Shannon and I were pregnant together in Phoenix with our firsts (Jade and David).  We joked at how they are betrothed (but really I’m not joking).  It was so fun to see our kids hit it off and play so well together after not seeing each other for a few years.  Just tonight Jade was requesting to see David again actually.  With some spontaneous hand holding after church, things are moving along nicely (wink, wink)…

The weekend with the Banks family was so much fun and much needed in so many ways!  Even though we’d only seen them a handful of times in the past five years, it was as if no time had passed at all.  I can’t wait until we get to see them again!! 

The other day as we were playing outside, I suggested Jade add some Halloween drawings to our décor.  She thought that was a great idea, and went straight to work.

She added jack o’ lanterns and pumpkins to the steps and to “block the garage.”

  

She also drew a haunted house, complete with a ghost, witch and skeleton.  She also said there was a monster inside.  My favorite though was the “mean” witch that was pushing a girl.  Because, you know, that’s what a mean person would do. 

 

The night before Halloween we CARVED pumpkins!  This was another first for our kids.  For the last several years, we have been buying the small baking pumpkins from the wet market to let Jade paint.  This year Cody made sure we had several waiting on our porch steps to carve when it was time. 

Jade sat right down and started sketching out how she wanted her carved pumpkin to look.  She specifically wanted a circle nose and zig zag mouth ("not a mouth with the teeth").  I asked her what all the lines were and she told me they were the lines on the pumpkins.  Sure enough, pumpkins have lines on them!  Silly me. 

 

Cody drew out her design—following her draft and instructions—and transferred it to the pumpkin of her choosing. 

The kids (especially Ridge) were pretty curious about the whole pumpkin carving process. 

 

Their reactions when it was time for them to pull out the guts was simply hilarious. 

I especially love Ridge’s face in the below right picture. 

  

Then it was time to get carving!  Jade did pretty good with the little pumpkin carving knife. 

 

  

As Daddy continued to help and supervise the kids on their pumpkin, I got to work on mine.  I had forgotten how much fun it is to carve a pumpkin!!

 

We finished up and took some pictures before taking the pumpkins outside to light them on the porch.

 

This was probably one of my top three or four favorite nights this month.  Teaching and watching the kids carve pumpkins for the first time was an absolute blast.