Spooky Day!

We made it through Halloween - just barely!  The above picture is our family photo of our ecclectic, rag-tag bunch of costumes.  Ginger ended up being a purple butterfly, Paprika was Merida, I was a Mommy Giraffe, Violet was a Baby Giraffe, and Mr. M was a Gorilla. 

After three years of owning that gorilla costume, he got to wear it!  Too bad that when he put on the mask and hands, it freaked Baby Violet out so badly, she could not stop crying.  Poor girl!

Paprika had a full morning at school.  Mr. M had the day off work, so he went to her class to help out and take photos - since we are the classroom photographers, after all!  They had a costume parade, a little carnival, a class party  - all very exciting.  He took almost 500 photos of the day, and so it's been a little overwhelming sorting those out.  I think I might be done looking at them when Paprika goes off to college. Haha.




This year I decided to tackle Halloween with a plan.  I knew otherwise we would be sitting around all day counting down the hours until trick or treating.  Since Paprika got out of school at 11:30am, that left a lot of time before trick or treating.  So, the night before Halloween, I wrote out a schedule (down to the hour) of what we were doing. 

First up, we decorated pumpkins:



Since I wanted the girls to be able to really participate, I just let them paint the pumpkins themselves.  Much less messy than carving, and they loved making their own creations:



Anything goes when you're painting pumpkins...



The girls had a great time doing it, and it took the better part of an hour:



Then it was time to make brownies.  Mr. M did that with the big girls while I took care of Violet.  It was just a box (the Ghiradelli double chocolate chip mix)- but the girls thought it was the best thing ever.  Yum!




Here's how they turned out.  They were ALL gone by the next day - and guess who ate them?  Not the girls!  Mr. M and I both had a terrible stomach ache and swore off chocolate (for at least a little while):




This was Baby Violet's LAST "First" Holiday!  So, this was her very first Halloween - and she'll be ONE a week from today.  So, from now on, every holiday is her SECOND holiday.  She got into the Halloween spirit.  She loved checking out the pumpkins:




Here are the pumpkins post-decoration.  They are an ecclectic bunch, too!



So, after all that (plus lunch at Rubio's), you would think it would be time to go trick-or treating.  Right?!  Well, you would be wrong.  So, while we were waiting we decided to carve a pumpkin traditional style.  All we had were teeny pumpkins, but they were good enough!



The finished product:




Then we went trick or treating.We went to a neighborhood where the houses are very close together and the streets are closed to traffic.  It was packed and crazy, but very fun. The girls had a blast.

 

This was Ginger's first year trick or treating, since she slept through Halloween last year! She quickly got the hang of it!



We just trick or treated as long as the girls wanted to, but after awhile, they were done!  They said, "Let's go home and pass out candy."



They ended up getting a TON of candy (both girls had brimming buckets) - and they honestly did not even care about the candy.  They just enjoyed saying Trick or Treat (and Thank You!) and meeting people. 

In the past two days, they haven't even eaten their candy.  Guess who's eating it?  Me!  Time to send it to work with Mr. M.  I never met a peanut butter cup I didn't like - so...yea, it needs to go and NOW!  ;-)



When we got home, Mr. M sat with Paprika on the front porch and passed out candy for about two hours.  We had bought at ton of candy to pass out, and it went quickly (we get a LOT of trick or treaters in our neighborhood).  Mr. M loved scaring everyone and finally got to wear his Gorilla mask.  ;-)

Paprika's favorite part is passing out the candy and asking everyone about their costumes.  And she was SO HAPPY to get rid of the big red wig.  As much as she loved being Merida, she loved taking off that wig even more!  Haha.

 

After that, we went inside and watched The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  I bought it (Amazon Streaming) - so now we have it every year to watch commercial-free.  I think it's going to become a tradition - it's the perfect way to unwind after a long day of festivities- plus it distracts the kids so the adults can pick out the best of the candy.  Just kidding...sorta!  ;-) 

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