Trick or Treat

For a week now we had been trying to set aside a block of time to carve our pumpkins for Halloween. We tried to carve them on Monday evening but lo and behold the official pumpkin carving tools were no where to be found. So yesterday, I searched high and lo for a new set of pumpkin carving tools and finally happened upon some at the Harris Teeter (very expensive I might add). So last night we were finally able to turn our plain old pumpkins into some jammin' jack-o-lanterns. Harrison was not thrilled about sticking his hands into the ooey gooey pumpkin insides but he was all about helping his dad do the carving. Holden was a willing participant in the pumpkin gut cleaning. He maybe enjoyed it a bit too much. He also liked doing the carving although several times his dad had to warn him that he was getting to close to fingers for comfort. Haley is finally at the age where she can create her own design and carve her own pumpkin. This makes it much easier on dad since now he only has to focus on the one. The jack-o-lanterns were happy about their outcome, look at the smile on their faces.

Tonight was the night of ghosts and goblins or more appropriately in our household, Power Rangers and Hippies. Holden and Harrison were Power Rangers and Haley (aka Ms. Procrastinator) ended up being a hippie. We tie died her shirt Monday evening. Of course the boys also wanted one so we ended up tye dyeing four shirts. Haley's friend Rachel was a bumblebee. Her mom made the cute outfit.

Before we went out trick or treating, our neighbors invited us over to their house for a cookout. It was a lot of fun and nice to meet some of the neighbors we had not met before. I blew my entire week of Flex points on the hot dog with chili but it was so incredibly delicious I just couldn't resist.

Our across the street neighbor started decorating his lawn for Halloween 3 weeks ago. Day after day we would come home to find some other decoration occupying space in his yard. First it was a few pumpkins, then some skeletons, then a scarecrow or two. Then came the monster inflatables and the inflatable haunted house. The porch was the last space to be decorated and I don't think he could have found room for another pumpkin. He even put a giant blow up spider on his roof. He even had music playing through speakers in his yard. This evening he dressed up like Captain Jack Sparrow to hand out treats.

Haley's friend Rachel came over to trick or treat. They just moved here from Tennessee and are leasing in a condo until their house in TN sells. So I was giving her father directions to come and pick her up and when I told him we lived across the street from the house with a million decorations he didn't really believe me. When he got here to pick her up he said that he now understood why I said that.

We had a steady stream of trick or treaters. I was the not so popular mom in our household who bought individual bags of unpopped popcorn to give out. I get so tired of telling the kids no more candy that I just thought it would be a cool idea to do something different. Most of the kids who came to the door were really excited about getting popcorn. One little girl who was about 8 said "Popcorn, that's kind of weird but thank you anyway."

I bought 80 bags thinking that would be a gracious plenty but I ran out about an hour into the whole trick or treating thing. I guess the house across the street brought quite a few more kids than usual. I started turning off the lights just before I ran out and still had a few come up to the door after I turned the lights off. I answered it the first time then I went upstairs and hid out with the lights off so no one could see me. Next year I guess I will need to get 160 bags of popcorn.