Oh, Halloween.
The kids started asking about Halloween some time in July? This year, though, I didn't spend hours creating costumes from scratch. Thank goodness. No. Harper had decided she wanted to be a - wait for it - a princess. Which means she just wore an outfit she's been wearing for the last, I don't know, YEAR. And that's fine. It was easy. The boy, out of nowhere, had declared he wanted to be a skeleton so thank you very much, Children's Place.
With a children's theatre production of Bunnicula, two Halloween parties, and the school fall festival the weekend before Halloween, we carved pumpkins the weekend before.
And by "we", I mean that as soon as the kids saw the inside of the pumpkin and that those insides needed to come out - with their HANDS - it meant that they watched me gut and carve.
And I wish I would have talked about pumpkin rot and decomposition as part of our pumpkin process because OH THE TEARS from the boy when five days later his pumpkin was the first to roll off the stool and crack in to a million moldy ant-covered pieces.
We attended an epic Halloween party, named by the hosts Pirates of Wellington Court. You guys, this group of neighbors freaking BUILT A PIRATE SHIP that kids could play on and inside the pirate ship, after dark, they had a 3D HAUNTED HOUSE. And not only that, but they had wireless radio contact with each other so they could adjust the scare factor based on who was coming through the doors. And not only THAT, but there was a four-camera live feed from inside the haunted house being projected onto an outdoor screen on the next driveway over. PEOPLE!
The next day was the kids' school fall festival which saw rock wall climbing, bull riding, bounce house bouncing, and face painting.
The finale of Halloween night took us to our friends' home in our old neighborhood, once again to trick-or-treat briefly, and then close out the evening with the kids handing out candy while the adults handed out wine to their grown-ups. Thanks to a colleague of mine providing the "fuel" source, I was able to make a flaming pumpkin for displaying for the trick-or-treaters.
