Our neighborhood hosts an annual Halloween costume party so we obviously got the kids all dressed up to attend. There were very specific costume requests this year, mostly from David who wanted to be his dad, complete with his '94 4-Runner. Sure sweetheart, I was hoping to do some postpartum cardboard crafting anyway. Henry just wanted to be a cowboy from the dress-up box (and under no circumstances participate in a costume contest or have anyone look at him, ever). John had been asking to be a ghost for over a month but once he was outfitted in the costume I made him (from sheets, not over his head--as per his request) he decided that actually, he didn't want to be a ghost after all. He picked out the dinosaur costume David wore circa 2010 instead. And as for Margaret, she wore the princess dress that Aunt Courtney sent along with the flower crown and wand I crafted. Well, she didn't actually wear the crown and she probably would have been just as happy in the dinosaur costume but when you wait so long for a princess option you go with the princess option.
After the party we hit up the pumpkin patch and found the perfect giant pumpkin to go along with the smaller ones we already had that the squirrels have been nibbling. Today we carved them up and Chris got to show off his super handy masculine side by busting out some power tools to get the job done. I suppose that's what you should expect when you turn over pumpkin gutting duty to dad. It really was a labor of love since he really dislikes everything about pumpkin carving. If you don't carve pumpkins though you don't get roasted pumpkin seeds and everyone loves roasted pumpkin seeds. I made these sweet ones and these regular ones this year and they were delicious.
Especially the sweet ones.
They'll hold me over nicely until I raid the children's Halloween candy stash tomorrow night. I'm going to be attempting my first solo trick-or-treating adventure with all five kids so wish me luck. Maybe luck and prayers.
PS David totally won the costume contest in the elementary school age category and he only lost one wheel in a fight with a Jedi :)
Happy Halloween!
