Pre-School Parade and Trick-or-Treating

Gracen had a Halloween parade at school, and for that day she chose to be Pinkalicious. This would be costume #3 for this year. That's the good thing about having girls and lots of dress up dresses :)

We were incredibly fortunate with the weather, it was probably 60ish that day. You never know with KS weather. I remember Halloween's from when I was little when we need layer upon layer, and then some where we could've worn flipflops.

They paraded around the playground, then sang us some Halloween songs. It was hilarious. I loooove watching them sing, they get so into it and don't care a thing about what they look like!

That night we headed over to Aunt Nanie's and her new(ish) house for some jack-o-lantern pizza and trick-or-treating!

For trick-or-treating Hadley was the cupcake again, and Gracen was workout Barbie. I am super pumped about her costume becuase we totally threw it together last minute. She originally wanted to wear her tutu from her dance recital, but refused to wear a long sleeve shirt underneath. So we started out with her black leo from dance and black tights, and then I put on her fleece 80's-esque sweatshirt for the flashdance look. Then a stroke of genius hit and I took a pair of my warm fuzzy socks and cut the feet part off and voila! leg warmers! She loooved them. She put on the headband and as soon as I told her she was Barbie she got really excited! I love when things just happen to work out like that.

Isn't she just the sweetest thing ever?? I could just eat her up!!

I think trunk-or-treats have kind of slowed down actual trick-or-treating. We went around the neighborhood for probably an hour, and hardly saw anyone. Most houses would give the girls handfuls of candy and we would be like no no that's plenty! We got plenty from Aunt Nanie too, she said she didn't get many trick-or-treaters. We had candy overload for quite a while (mommy wasn't complaining). Overall we had a blast the whole month of October. Seems like it was Halloween all month long!

Carving Pumpkins

This year we decided to do something cray-cray and actually carve pumpkins! the past few years with itty bittys in the house we just painted our pumpkins. And that was pretty fun, but last year our pumpkins didn't last long. We don't have a porch anymore, and one night it rained and washed all the paint off - damn you washable finger paints! And then the squirrels came and ate the pumpkins. Literally, ate it all.

Seriously this was after the first day on the porch last year. By the third day it was totally gone, stem and all.

By "we" I mean the Mr. carved the pumpkins. I got the lovely job of cleaning the pumpkin seeds (g-ross, but totally worth it) and roasting them. Roasted pumpkin seeds are one of my all time fav snacks, and they're totally good for you. BONUS!

Don't mind the ice pack on Gracen's head. She previously wacked her head on something messing around with Had, but was not going to miss out on the dangerous fun of carving pumpkins.

I'm pretty sure all those seeds lasted us like a day and a half. They were just so delicious. And luckily the squirrels did NOT attack our pumpkins this year. I think without the seeds in them they lost their appeal.

All lit up on the front porch!!! Luckily no blood was drawn, and no tears were shed. I'd call that a successful first year of carving pumpkins.

Also in case you need a super easy and yummy roasted pumpkin seed recipe:

• 4 Tbs melted butter
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• 2 tsp worchestershire sauce

Mix the above and coat pumpkin seeds, place on a cookie sheet and roast in a 275 degree oven stirring every 5 minutes. Then try not to eat in one sitting :)

Pumpkinpalooza / Trunk-or-Treat

This year Halloween lasted the whole month of October for us. Seems like we had something going on every weekend. As the kids get older, we get busier.

Pumpkinpalooza is a fundraiser at Aunt Jaime's work the Sunflower House. We decided that would take place of our annual pumpkin patch visit since we were getting our pumpkins there, and our weekends were pressed for time. Aunt Nanie snagged the KSU pumpkin, so we got one with Hello Kitty painted on it, and one that was chalkboard painted to color on ourselves. The girls got their faces painted, had some lunch, played in the bouncy house while Mom and Dad waited in line for like an hour for balloon animals.

 For this day Gracen was little red riding hood and Hadley was Tinkerbell. This year I opted not to buy new costumes. The girls have plenty of dress up dresses, and other clothes that I totally jimmy rigged every single one. I love that little fur cape!

 

While we were there we ran into Gracen's friend Adele from preschool! They were inseperable, even while getting her face painted!

Hadley was pretty apprehensive of the face painter and made Gracen go first. She also made sure that it matched her dress. She is my daughter after all :)

Finally! Gracen's kitty!! Too bad it popped shortly after and we had a mild melt down...

Miss Tink got 2 puppies kissing and a heart. She's really into Lady and the Tramp right now and loooved that it was a bracelet too!

It took us forever to get them out of the bouncy house. I'm pretty sure we were the last people there. But they had a blast, and definitely took a good nap that day.

It was a fun morning, the weather was gorgeous and it all went to a good cause. I'd call that a successful start to Halloween 2012!

Next up was trunk-or-treat at Gracen's school. It was pretty chilly out that night, but the Mr. had class and we had nothing better to do, so we switched up costumes and headed to St. Ann's!

Gracen was a cupcake last year, so Hadley picked that to wear this night since it was so cold. Gracen wanted to be tinkerbell this time, so she looks like a little chunko with so many layers underneath. Overall we were only there for less than 30 minutes, once it got completely dark out the temps dropped quickly. We got some good candy though - I may or may not have been steering them toward the Reese's. We had a blast, and it was fun to see so many of the families from Gracen's school!