Post-Trick-Or-Treating Fun.

**There are like six new posts here. This one is the last in the actual history of things, so if you want to see this week in the order it occurred, start with the post titled "Pre-Halloween Fun."**

Halloween day and night brought more trick or treating. We went to the locally owned grocery store where they always hand out candy throughout the store to the trick-or-treating patrons. We met with our neighbor friends there, then headed to the assisted living home (Emiritus Estates) down Washington for a visit with the elderly and more candy gathering. One of our neighbor's grandmothers lives there. It was fun to see the joy on the faces of all the elderly men and women as they saw all the cute kids in their costumes and handed each a piece or two of candy. After that, we came home to empty out our pumpkins, and get ready to stroll the neighborhood.

Once everyone returned home for the evening, the feasting began.

Here's Lucas saying "cheese" for the camera with a mouth full of candy corn.

"Mwah hah ha ha ha!"

On Halloween night each year, the kids are allowed to eat as much candy as they want... until bedtime. Then they place their pumpkins full of candy on the kitchen table as an "offering" to the "Great Pumpkin." Then it's upstairs to brush teeth REALLY well, and off to bed. In the morning when they wake up, there's a great new gift in place of the candy filled pumpkins that was left by the "Great Pumpkin" sometime during the night as a little "thank you" for the candy they so lovingly bestowed upon him. Here's what that looks like.


In the morning, the kids all came down to eat breakfast and found the gifts. Both the boys got new trains. Alex's pulls a car with a dinosaur skeleton on it, and Lucas's pulls a car with a bicycle on it. They were very excited about them. Here's Alex looking at his.

Lucas wasn't quite as thrilled with having a gift.

"Hey...

"Where's the candy???"

Audrey wasn't quite sure what to do with hers. At first, she picked it up and dropped it on the floor. She's been doing that with everything that she doesn't feel has a use to her lately.

Eventually, with a little help and guidance, she got hers opened. I think she likes it.

Sarah slept in quite a bit longer than the rest of the kids. Which is understandable. She did stay up quite a bit later than everyone else also. But when she finally did come down and see her new gift, this is what I got.

She got the Belle doll (from Beauty and the Beast) that goes with the princess horse she got for her birthday earlier this year. She was thrilled. Which is good, considering I bought it back in August because I happened to see it on sale and thought it would be smart to store it for an occasion where she might do something to merit a new toy like that. I'd say it worked out quite nicely.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Party Time!

Well, I survived the sewing machine attacks and we were ready to go for the party in the morning. There were about 20 preschoolers, a dozen or so moms and one dad. The kids all had fun decorating halloween cookies, playing musical chairs, and making footprint ghosts. They had their fill of cookies, pumpkin shaped sandwiches, chips, grapes and goulish punch (apple juice mixed with 7-Up in a punch bowl with a blue, frozen, floating monster head.) Later that night, we headed over to the church for our ward party and door to door trick or treating around all the kids' primary classrooms.

Here's my little mummies decorating their cookies.

I can just see the thoughts running through Lucas's head in this one. "Hmmmm... should I put more candy on it?" He decided in favor of that option.

Here's Audrey at our ward party. Unfortunately, she was feeling a little ill that day. She did have plenty of smiles at the party, but my camera takes so darn long to focus and take the picture that I missed every single one of them! She made such a cute creepy baby mummy, though, don't you think?


This is my "cool kid" Lucas. He was posing for me at the church before the costume parade.

Our little mummy family won "Best in Show." Which really earned us nothing but bragging rights. There was no actual prize. This was the only picture of our entire family on my camera. I think a few other people got some good ones. But I only have one.

Alex really liked his "scary clothes."

Here's Mommy Mummy with her baby.

Cutest, littlest mummy at the party.

And the sugar high begins...

Scary Papa Mummy!

Poor Audrey. She did so well despite not feeling very well. Then she zonked.

Here they all are on the ride home showing off their mummy growls.

I Sewed My Finger!

That's what I get for procrastinating and staying up late. I waited until three days before the first Halloween party to start on the three new costumes for this year. Sarah's, Alex's and Lucas's. I finished Sarah's and Lucas's, and half of Alex's in a couple of late night sewing sessions in a row. Then I had the last half of Alex's to finish the night before the first party at 11:30am at my house. So... here's what happened:

The first finger.I was tacking one of Alex's mummy strips down, and my finger just sort of jumped up under the needle! I swear it did! I poked a hole right through. It bled like crazy too. So I went up and washed it off, wrapped it for a minute while I got out all the first aid stuff, then proceeded to put neosporin and a bandaid on it. It was throbbing, but I wasn't finished with the costume that I needed the next morning. So I put all the stuff away and headed back downstairs.

The second finger. It was less than five minutes later. The first time, I just yanked my finger back away from the sewing machine and said "Shoot!" Not even very loudly. The second time, I yanked my finger back and yelled "CRAP!" which, if you know me at all, only comes out of my mouth when I have done something I consider seriously stupid. So I went back upstairs and had to get all the first aid stuff back out. When I was finished, I left it out just in case! This one was much less severe, though. It was more of a cut than a puncture, really. Which is a little funny because that's the finger that still bugs me today, after 4 days. The first one that went through is practically healed. Go figure. The scratched finger is more of a nuisance than the actual wounded finger...

So this is what my hand looked like for a few days. If you'll notice, the time on my watch in these pictures is AM, not PM. Thus the tired stupidity that led to sewn fingers.

On a brighter note, my nails were very festive. Look at the cute Jack-O-Lantern polish!

Our Halloween Decor

We've had our Halloween decorations up since September 22. Jeff's birthday. This is because Sarah was so excited for Halloween that she kept asking over and over again every day "When is it going to be Halloween?" And the response was always "After Papa's Birthday." Well... guess whose birthday was on a Monday night. FHE September 22 was putting up Halloween decor. Here's what it looked like for most of the month and a half before Halloween at the Farnsworth House:

Front.

Here's the front porch close up.

Here's the ghost I made this year. Sarah really wanted it to be a girl ghost, but I needed something to help tie off the neck. So it's got a necktie, and a bow in it's "hair." Plus some creepy red tulle under it's "skirt." I thought it turned out pretty cute. A good mix of cute and creepy at the same time.

Here's our creepy big spider. It's actually pretty daunting staring down our guests from the ceiling as they're knocking.

Some of you might recognize this from years' past. Maybe from a great, awesome, amazing haunted house that was put on at Kathy's house a few years back? Yep. It's the creepy amputated leg I made. I kinda like having it around for occasions just such as Halloween.

Along with the creepy, we do also have some cute stuff. Here's the scarecrows that became some of the newest additions to our Halloween decor this year.


Apparently, this is the kind of pet we really should choose to get. She stayed right there and out of trouble for an entire month and a half.

This is the first time we've had a real fireplace. Along with a fireplace comes a mantle. This was fun to decorate.

The cutest Halloween Spider ever! Sarah made this at preschool and brought it home. It was so cute, I just HAD to hang it up somewhere.

Last, but not least, and certainly not all-inclusive, is the bats and skeletons hanging from our dining chandelier. As an added bonus, you can see what the fixture looks like now that the ugly gold has been painted over. Nice, huh? Looks like a brand new chandelier. It used to look exactly like the one in the picture above with Sarah's spider, only smaller. What a difference a can of spray paint can make!

Jack-O-Lanterns!

After Jeff got back into town, for Family Home Evening the Monday before Halloween, we carved Jack-O-Lanterns out of the pumpkins we so excitedly picked from the pumpkin patch the week or so before. Unfortunately, pictures were an afterthought of the evening, so I only got a couple of the actual carving process. But I did get plenty of the finished products.

Here's Jeff creating his masterpiece.

Can you guess what his is going to be?

Sarah's friend, Katie and her older sister Ellie came with their family to join in the fun and create their own masterpieces with us. Here is Ellie helping Sarah trace out a design for her Jack-O-Lantern. She was so excited to help, and was so nice with Sarah. She's eight, and very outgoing. She even suggested the design for my pumpkin.

Here's Alex's (Left) and Lucas's (Right)

Ellie and Katie's dad did this one. I really wanted to get a picture of it lit from the inside, but my camera sucks at night pictures. So here's the flash version. It was pretty cool. Same design as Sarah's, only skinned instead of carved. You really can see the light through it when there's a candle. I guess you'll just have to take my word for how cool it really was...

Here's mine.


Here's the finished, lit product for Lucas (top), Sarah (middle) and Alex (bottom).

Here's a closeup of Sarah's. I carved it while Sarah watched. She said her favorite wolf is the one on the right side. And mine can be the one howling at the moon. She chose the wolf design for hers. Actually, she more insisted that be what goes on her pumpkin. She's been kind of into wolves lately because of the Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess (Nintendo game)

Here's Jeff's finished product.

Did you notice the "U"? We have very enthusiastic BYU fans for neighbors. They were quite appalled that Jeff would have the audacity to carve a "U" in his pumpkin with a guy scoring an extra point after a touchdown! Of course, they'll still be friends. But Jeff's been banned from their house for any and all BYU football games...

Audrey's pumpkin got painted with neon paint pens instead of carved. Partly because there were nine big pumpkins carved that night, and partly because we needed a little something more to glow in our blacklight lit porch at night. This was the perfect solution for both.

Here it is a glowin'

It was a fun Family Home Evening night that night. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and I had about seven batches of pumpkin seeds to roast! No pictures of those, sorry. But they turned out pretty well in my opinion. I made five flavors: Salt, Pumpkin Pie, Italian, Mexican and Curry. Mmmm...