A-Haunting We Will Go

The kids were so excited for Halloween night to finally be here! Poor Claire was sick (second time this month - we've had some serious issues lately) so she wasn't her usual happy self, but still managed to enjoy the night. Cole had yet another costume. He had very originally wanted to be a skeleton, but when we couldn't find a skeleton costume he decided to be Harry Potter, then Ron, then the pumpkin that he was for the party (see earlier post). I happened to find one later on so for the official Halloween night he was a skeleton.




Ava wouldn't get out of the stroller that Daddy was going to push her in for trick-or-treating, so these were the only shots I could get of her.


Being Scooby-Doo, tongue and all.




The kids by their jack-o-lanterns, making spooky faces.  Ava's absent because I couldn't get her out of her stroller.  I even tried carrying the stroller with her in it over by the pumpkins, but she got out and pushed the stroller back onto the sidewalk while yelling at me.  Oh well, guess there's next year. 








Yay!  Ava's out of her stroller!  All three kids in a Halloween picture!







I stayed home to pass out candy and Grant took the kids trick-or-treating.  Grant said that almost everyone who gave candy to Ava thought she was a boy.  She got a lot of, "Here you go little buddy!" Surprise, surprise!

Finally on their way...


Our pumpkin lights.


After the kids went around our neighborhood, we drove to (yet another) party someone was throwing in our ward.  On our way, we stopped at this AMAZING house that had built a pirate ship on their lawn.  Yes, you read me right, a pirate ship.  As you can see from the picture, it's almost the size of a real ship.  It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen.  The pictures definitely do NOT do it justice.






Some pictures without the flash so you can get a feel for what it felt like at night.




These are some shots I took of it while it was being built.


I'd hate to be this guy's neighbor!  No way to keep up with the Jones's here!


Ever since Halloween Ava has not gone anywhere without her bucket of candy.  This has made it quite difficult to stop her from eating candy all the time, but she's so dang cute that I can't bring myself to tear it away from her.


The other two needed pictures with their candy bags, too.




Ava coloring (Scooby Doo, of course) with her bucket right beside her.


We'll miss you 'til next year, Halloween!!!!!

Bootiful

I love Halloween decorations and as many of you know, I suffer from OCDD - Obsessional Compulsive Decorating Disorder.  Whenever I have any sort of decorations to put up I literally cannot sleep at night because I'm thinking of where everything should go and what things I need to buy to complete my decor.  I'm dead serious when I say I really have a problem.  I mean, who cares where my Halloween decorations go?  Is there anyone else in the world who lays awake at night debating whether a ceramic pumpkin should be put on the mantel or on the kitchen counter?  Like I said, it's truly a disease.  So, in order to help myself (and my family who has to live with my insanity) I decided to take pictures of where I put everything so I don't have to try to remember or re-think it next year.  I decided to share it with you, although I know it would've been a lot more fun if I'd put the pictures up BEFORE Halloween to get everybody in the mood.  I'll try to do that with my Christmas decor, though, how's that?

We'll start outside and then tour through the house.  

Here's one of the two wreaths I semi-made for our two front doors.  I bought them for $5 on clearance last year at Walmart and then took all the stuff off I didn't like and added stuff I did.

I made these little guys...

...and hung them on our chandelier along with the balls Cole and I made last year.

I added lots of candles and a few more skeletons for a spooky effect on Halloween.

Dining room table.

My friend gave me this door she bought at a garage sale and didn't want anymore.  The backside had a tons of hooks to hang pictures off of.  I didn't really have a place to hang it on my wall, but thought it'd look great as a Halloween prop.

Thanks for touring my home with me and helping me with my OCDD!

Creepy Creations

We made lots of fun things for Halloween. First was a haunted house cake (the cake was Red Velvet since it looks like blood!)


We made sugar cookies.

We painted pumpkins, which was actually a nightmare.  I thought I'd bought paint pens that were like markers, but they were really paint in tubes shaped like pens.  The kids got into them before I knew it and paint was everywhere.   Needless to say, the pumpkins aren't quite as cute as they could've been because we did a very quick job and then cleaned up!

And we, of course, carved jack-o-lanterns.  This one's Claire's.

Ava's (although Ava had absolutely nothing to do with carving it).

Cole's.  You can't tell in this shot, but he has vampire fangs.