The Official Halloween Post

A day or two before Halloween we ate our traditional dinner in a pumpkin. Pumpkin brains (spaghetti), pumpkin eyes (sliced carrots), and green slime (green vanilla pudding with sprinkles!)

Halloween! What a fun day!! We woke up and I made pancakes since Miles has been asking for pancakes for about a week. They even got to make pumpkin faces out of chocolate chips. Later on we used black paper shapes to make faces on our orange paper pumpkins during "school" time. You'll just have to believe me since I didn't take pictures.

They were so excited to actually be wearing their Halloween costumes, so they got to wear them all day! The night before Halloween, I realized I didn't have the cowhide chaps for Jessie or the cowhide vest for Woody. Doh! Then I saw this old white towel on the clothesline and figured that was just as good. :) I stayed up late cutting up the towel, painting cow spots all over it, and sewing them (sans pattern, mind you) into the costume finishing touches. I thought of my mom always hand making these amazing costumes for all of us, probably staying up late till the wee hours of the morning.I laid them out so they were the first thing they saw in the morning. Man, they just lit up! What with chocolate chip pancake faces AND Woody and Jessie costumes?? They were more excited than they've ever been on Christmas. After we were all ready, we headed to visit Richie at work and "trick-or-treat" to some of his students. It was hilarious listening to all the girls ooh and ahh and "oh how cute! It's so cute I think I'm going to cry!!" The boys were about to gag on all the girl swooning going on. I, however, ate it up. :) *As a revised, side note, I thought I'd come back and add how these costumes came together. I found 2 white church shirts, 1 cowboy hat and 1 woody hat at the DI. I spray painted Jessie's hat red. I dyed Woody's shirt yellow then had my mom help me draw the lines on with a fabric pen. I also had my mom help me paint the details on Jessie's shirt. I used brown duct tape and taped up their rain boots to make them more authentic. I estimate each costume cost about $6, bringing this year's costume total to a whopping $12. Yes!!

We went to the park after, just for a few minutes and it cracked me up listening to Miles run up to other kids and say, "Look! I'm Woody! Howdy, Howdy, Howdy!" After naps, we got ready again and hit up our street trick-or-treating. I guess when you go trick-or-treating at 5 pm, not many people are at home and ready to hand out candy! The kids didn't even notice. They got a few pieces, we packed them up in the van and we headed to a party at Tyler and Sheree's house. They have this amazing play room, so the kids are ALWAYS in heaven there. We were happy just to chat with everyone and eat yummy food. We even got a little more trick-or-treating in. I made Richie wear his old football jersey and I wore one of my old exec sweaters. So we were us 10 years ago. Clever, yes? That's about as "into Halloween" we get. Once again, you'll just have to believe me since I forgot to snap pictures of us!

We got home and the kids were rightfully in a sugar coma, and fell asleep quicker than I've ever seen. It was one the best Halloweens I can remember.