Happy Halloween!

Remember back when we were kids and there was just one Halloween? That's right kids, we had one evening to canvas our entire neighborhood, uphill and in the snow for one measly bag of candy. Nowadays you can celebrate Halloween All. Week. Long. We've opted out of a lot of events, but Halloween kicked off last Saturday when Grammie took the boys to the Butterfly Pavilion for Bug-A-Boo.

The school put the kabosh on Halloween parties or costumes in school this year (I say - boo, hiss!) but they were allowed to celebrate fall. Alex's class had a harvest breakfast and Adam's class had a Pumpkin Pancake Pajamas Picnic Party on Friday. I helped out for both. Well, if by helping for Alex's breakfast I mean chatting up Andrew's dad, a fellow cyclist and chiropractor. In fact, he's my chiropractor's chiropractor, which is intriguing because his office is in South Boulder. I digress, but I could see switching doctors to save 30 minutes of driving. Anyway, in Adam's class I helped in the craft room and completely skipped out on the pumpkin pancakes, though I did see a lot of pumpkins and pajamas.

Friday afternoon I spent 4 hours carving pumpkins with the boys. I learned that Adam is completely prissy and wouldn't stick his hand in a pumpkin to gut it, but I did get Alex to poke all the tiny holes on his pre-made design choice. The carving wouldn't have been nearly as hard if those tiny plastic saws weren't so cheap and breakable. Next year I need to go the "two triangle eyes, nose and mouth" route and maybe one complex one.

Alex's Owl:



Adam's spider:



My monster (I chose it because it seemed to have the fewest tiny cuts):



During Halloween day, we went to Trick-or-Treat Street at Grandpa's high school. Now that was an experience. The high school kids decorated the school with different themes and wore costumes and then every kid handed out candy. Every kid. The efforts of an entire night canvasing the neighborhood accomplished in 10 short (indoor and warm) minutes. We caught up with Ariel and Hannah there too.

A slightly sick Princess Belle:



Ariel was Ariel. Get it? Ha ha ha!



Commander Rex checking his stash. A boy in Alex's class is sending candy to soldiers in Iraq and Alex says he'll donate half of his:



Nobody knows who Dan the Bakugan Brawler is, but Adam still had fun:





When we got home, we made roasted pumpkin seeds, which turned out better than any other year I've tried them. I soaked them in water over night and then followed this recipe for half, and then just did salt on the other half.



And finally, we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. It was about 45 degrees when we left and the boys were insistent that they didn't need jackets. I did make them wear a shirt and sweat shirt under the costumes:



Our snowy yard: