Happy Halloween!



Halloween isn't just a one night party with kids in the house. A couple of trips to the pumpkin patch, some pumpkin muffins made, and several opportunities for the girls to dress up in their costumes -- that was our October.

 

Marin and Silje had a field trip to The Farm to pick out their pumpkins earlier in the month. We went back later in the month with Ailey and Andy too and ended up having a beautiful, if cold, day to walk through the pumpkins.

Ailey helped me make our first batch of pumpkin muffins. Yummm....

Our first Halloween party was at our church this past weekend - it's a huge Harvest Bash with trunk-or-treating in the parking lot, carnival games, food, and lots of fun for the girls. Here we have Jessie the Cowgirl (from Toy Story), Dorothy after her trip to Oz, and Izzy the pirate (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates).

Andy was in Portland for this party (and the one the next morning). But gone are the days when I couldn't imagine taking all three girls to a party like this by myself. We did well and had a great time. We even met up with my sister and her boys (Luke and Sam, the train conductors) for a photo op.

I enjoy carving the pumpkins, and the girls are slowly getting more into it. They each chose their own carving designs again this year, and Marin and Silje decided it was OK to get their hands slimy and helped pick the seeds out for later baking. One of these days I'm figuring they will lose their girly squeamishness and actually dig into a pumpkin! (Marin DID help dig out some pulp. There's hope for her.)

Silje drew her hearts, Ailey drew the face. Marin wanted a Husky on hers, but I talked her into a W for Washington Huskies instead since I couldn't draw the Husky on such a small pumpkin. We then flipped the W on the back of her pumpkin to also make an M for Marin. (Here you just see the M, of course.)

 

We had our Halloween night fun with Parker and Levi. Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner followed by costumes and trick-or treating around the neighborhood. Here are Dorothy, a tarantula, Darth Vader, Izzy and Jessie. Lots of fun!



 



Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

We continued our Halloween tradition this year with Parker, Levi and family: Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner, followed by costuming up and heading out to trick-or-treat the neighborhood.

With costumes on we brought out the glow-sticks ...

We had a flapper, a cowgirl, dracula, a vampire bat, and Ariel the princess. They all had long-sleeves under their costumes, but it was so nice and mild out that we didn't even need coats or rainboots!

Our jack-o-lanterns lit the way for trick-or-treaters to visit our house too. Though we didn't get nearly enough to empty the Costco bag of candy. Darn-it!

Happy Halloween!

A Happy Halloween

Ailey spent most of Saturday anticipating the coming evening. She knew Parker and family were joining us for dinner and trick-or-treating and was almost literally bouncing off the walls waiting for them to show up. However, Parker showing up didn't help to calm her down any - she was SO EXCITED about Halloween this year!

Halloween with Parker started when he and Ailey were just 6 months old (check out last year's Halloween post, with pictures of past years). The second year, when Parker and Ailey were 1 1/2, Parker's mom Jen and I actually ventured to take them trick-or-treating to a couple houses on our street. This year we numbered 5 kids and 3 adults walking up the street. After herding our little ones up and down sidewalks and stairs, I think we're both looking forward to a few years from now when we can stand back at the street with our thermoses of cocoa and let the kids do their candy-thing!

The crew from left: Parker the "Scary Bat" (an amazing costume that Jen made, complete with very cool wings that I didn't get a good picture of); Marin the Ladybug; Levi the Bear; Ailey as Cinderella; and Silje the Bumblebee.

 

Ailey and Parker

Heading out trick-or-treating ... rainboots, umbrellas and all!

 

Ailey checking out her treats.

Silje really wanted those Skittles! When we told her she could have some tomorrow, I'm pretty sure all she heard was "blah blah blah".

When it was time to go there were hugs all around....

My favorite picture of the night!

I hope you all had a fun Halloween!!

Halloween

We had a happy Halloween here on Friday. Ailey had preschool and came home with some Halloween treats from her teacher. Then we had to wait ... OOOHHH, THE WAITING! ... for Parker and family to come for dinner and trick-or-treating. We had the orange lights on over the mantel, the jack-o-lanterns lit on the porch, and the candy ready for visitors.

Dinner was a bit harried. What do you expect trying to feed 5 kids with the anticipation of candy floating ghost-like over their heads? Ailey wanted sausage pizza ... um, or not; Parker "ate a good dinner!" aka a few bites of pizza; Levi wasn't interested in eating much at all; Marin and Silje were the hungry ones and started the rounds of spooky Halloween screeching. Once everyone was "fed" the three older kids costumed up and posed for pictures: a fairy princess, a chipmunk, and a tiger, oh my!

Parker and family have come the past four years since they don't get trick-or-treaters where they live, and Ailey and Parker have made the rounds of our neighbor's homes gathering treats that Ailey, at least, will never eat. (She's not a sweets kind of kid. Is she the first in the history of kids? Or are there other kid-anomalies out there?) Trick-or-treating was a little more fun this year. It's been getting more fun as Parker and Ailey are able to do more and are more interested in it each year. Levi was the trick-or-treating King though - at 16 months old he was the one running up the walk-ways and knocking on all the doors. He really got into it. Something that made me think about next Halloween when Marin and Silje will be 21 months old and joining us on the candy hunt. Jen and I figured next year will be a good year to hand off the trick-or-treating duties to the dads....

THIS is the picture we got when trying to get all of them in the viewfinder at once. Parker the Chipmunk, Levi the Tiger, Ailey the Fairy Princess, Marin and Silje as themselves

The Fairy Princess and her subjects

Parker and Ailey ready for trick-or-treating

And for nostalgia's sake, Parker and Ailey Halloweens 1-3....

2005

2006: Parker the Tiger and Ailey the sumo-wrestler (her hip brace under the costume)2007: Levi the Lion standing in for photo-shy Parker, and Doctor Ailey

Aaahhh, that was fun!

Edited to add: Cute! Ailey and Parker trick-or-treating (picture from Jen)