Halloween 2011

We had such a fun, low-key Halloween this year! 

The kids were definitely excited to decorate their pumpkins with the fun kits we got at the craft store. (Way less messy than carving!)

I got to help Lilly with her Princess Pumpkin....who knew Princesses could blow bubble gum bubbles that well!?!

("Cheese!!!!")

Matt helped Sam with his Pirate Pumpkin.

Argh me hearty!

Tyler opted for a crazy face pumpkin creation that he came up with all on his own!

I also helped Charlie make a Mummy Pumpkin.

He wasn't all that excited about it, as you can see. Maybe next year...

The boys thought it was extra festive to have their costumes ON while we did our pumpkins!

The boys both had fun parties at school. I got to help do a craft project for Sam's party. With Grandma's help in the idea department, I had the kids make gargoyles out of paper sacks and magazine cut outs of eyes, noses, and mouths. It was a big hit! 

The night before Halloween we had a Preview Parade at Grandma's house with the Cushing cousins. We put on "Thriller" music and the kids did their own parade in the living room for all of the grandparents and great-grandparents that were in attendance. Then the kids did a mock-Trick-or-Treat on Grandma's porch and got some goodies!

We were so happy that the day of Halloween was such a nice weather day! 

We hardly had to bundle up at all!

Here's Tyler's best ninja pose!

Sam is the sweetest, most gentle Darth Vader I've ever met!

(I had to include full version with the mask down!)

Here's Lilly's purple butterfly ensemble! 

She was so funny during our trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. She was kind of like a deer caught in the headlights. She was totally confused at first....and just didn't quite "get" why we would go knock on all of our neighbors' doors and why they would just give us free candy!! I guess I didn't really explain it all that well to her in advance. Nonetheless, with only a few spooks from a few scary decorations, she did just fine throughout our little adventure. Lilly did get a bit frustrated at times because her little legs just couldn't keep up with her bigger brothers....so I stayed behind with her until we could catch up. Her little pumpkin got heavy too, from all the loot, so I helped her with that. It was just slowing her down way too much! :)

And here's our Charlie boy in all his froggy glory!!!

He was a trooper during our Trick-or-Treating. He stayed in the baby carrier (Matt carried him) but actually stayed awake for most of it. 

I should have taken a picture, but didn't, of Matt when we were out and about. I gave him a wig to wear (long, brown, and curly) so he would have at least some sort of costume on. A lot of our neighbors had to do a double (or triple!) take because they couldn't figure out who he was! Some people thought I had brought my mom to go with us....but couldn't figure out why I was making "HER" carry the baby! ha ha ha. It was pretty funny stuff.

All in all, it was a SUPER FUN Halloween!!!