Halloween Fun

We LOVE October and Halloween-time!! It's one of Mamma's favorite times of year, as is commonly known. And we do it up right. Since I was pregnant this year and all out of sorts, there were a couple of things we wanted to do, but sort of fell through the cracks. Despite this, our Halloween was EPIC!

• Picking out Pumpkins

We went to a nearby pumpkin patch this year to pick out our pumpkins, though a different one from last year. This one was more of a Fall Carnival at a little farm than just a Pumpkin Patch. There was a little hay bale maze, a petting zoo, wagon rides and food and music on the weekends, apart from the actual pumpkins. We went on a weekday, after Daniel was done with work, so we missed out on some of that extra fun stuff. Maybe next year we'll do more.

We went into the pumpkin patch and the girls were beyond excited to look at and touch and try to heft every single pumpkin they saw. They both kept saying they wanted every pumpkin, and it was really fun and cute to watch them be so excited about it. I couldn't handle them being so cute.

After we picked out and paid for our pumpkins, we paid a little extra to go through the petting zoo, which was fun, too. The girls were a little hesitant for most of it; but they liked the little goats and rabbits, and they thought the pigs and turkeys were pretty cool, although they didn't really want to go near them.

*The amount of cheese in this picture could cover a few pizzas! I can't handle it!*

• Totally Fun Costumes

I had a quite a time trying to find costumes for the girls this year. I did NOT want to make any costumes this year (ya know ... pregnant), so I was trying to figure out what else to do. I kept asking the girls what they wanted to be. Camille didn't really know what I was talking about, and so, didn't really give me any answer. Brooke, however, kept changing her answer every time I asked her. At first, she wanted to be a bat, so I was trying to figure out how to make a bat happen. Then she wanted to be a witch, which would have been easy. There are about a million cheap witch costumes we could've bought. And then she said a few other things, which I cannot remember at the moment, but which also didn't last long. And lastly, she landed on Tigger, which answer stuck more than any of the others, although she did occasionally revert back to an old request.

We went to the 2nd-hand children's store to check out what they had, and lo! and behold! they had a Tigger costume IN BROOKE'S SIZE! Well, I had to buy it, even though she didn't seem thrilled with it at the time. She kept getting distracted by all the other costumes there. And the toys. I also found Camille's blue monster costume there, and it was too cute to pass up. So we left with a great costume for each.

But, ... I decided we'd try Costco really fast. I'd heard that they had some good options. We found the costumes after some searching, and looked through them. I asked Brooke what she thought. There were some cute witch costumes, some princess costumes, etc. But she was immediately and forever taken with the Rainbow Dash costume (from My Little Ponies). It was $10, so I thought, "what the heck? I'll buy my little girl this not-near-as-cute-as-Tigger costume." And then she had 2 options for costumes.

She wore Rainbow Dash to her Preschool Halloween party, Tigger for the Ward Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treating. And both the girls looked too cute for words!

• Ward Halloween Party

 Our ward Halloween Party was fun. Daniel and I didn't dress up this year. I was a bit ... lazy, you could say, and didn't want to put any effort in this year. And Daniel, I guess, was the same. BUT. The girls were SO cute in their costumes, and I couldn't leave Camille alone, she looked so cute in her monster costume.

• Holbrook Family 2nd Annual Halloween Feast Extraordinaire (we might have to shorten this name next time)

Last year, I decided we'd start a fun new Halloween tradition, because I love Halloween: a Family Halloween Feast. I mean, we have feasts for most of the major holidays, right? Or at least most of the world does -- Christmas Dinner (or Christmas Eve), Thanksgiving (obviously), Easter Dinner, 4th of July Barbeques... But there isn't really one for Halloween, and I decided there should be. So. This year was our 2nd Annual Halloween Feast. And it was FUN! The girls were much more into it this year. I got them all hyped up about it, and at least Brooke knew sort of what was going on because she could remember from last year. I made some of the same food, and some new things. Here was our menu: Worms with Sangria Sauce (spaghetti), Bones (breadsticks), Scarabs (roasted brussel sprouts), Dracula's Drink (blackberry Izze in fancy cups, with peeled grapes), Mashed Jack'o'Lantern with bugs (coconut yams with raisins), Witches Wands (roasted asparagus), and Ghost Cookies. It was so fun!

*Couldn't do it without my witches' hat!!*

After our dinner, I put out a smorgasbord of treats, we gathered the snacks we wanted in little bowls, and we watched Ichabod Crane for a little Halloween Family Movie Night. 

 

• Trick-or-Treating 

The Delhoyos invited us to do Halloween night and Trick-or-Treating with them. We went to their place for soup, salad, bread dinner, and then went Trick-or-Treating around their neighborhood afterwards. It was so much fun! There were a bunch of families joining us, basically everyone who lives over in this area: the Hebdons, the Faucettes, the Fischers, the Smiths. The girls were so thrilled about T-or-Ting that they didn't eat much dinner, especially Camillie. And they loved being with all the kids.

After eating real quick, we headed out to do our T-or-Ting. There was such an age range in our group of kids that after a while, we sort of naturally split into a few groups -- the older kids were fast, and they basically ran from house to house; and then there were some younger kids; and then there was us, and little Gabrielle Fischer. Our girls were pretty slow, especially Camillie. So, we hung back and stopped trying to keep up. It was fun, though. They both loved it so much, and it killed Daniel and I to watch how cute Camille was. She waddled up to each door in her little monster costume, getting distracted by pumpkins and decorations along the way. Then she's sometimes say her little, "Trick or Treat!" and sometimes she needed prompting. And then she'd walk away with a little, "Happy Halloween!" It was too much. And Daniel and I were both dying from the cuteness.

We stayed out way later than we'd intended to and did almost the entire neighborhood with our friends, skipping houses here and there towards the end. We were just having too much fun! And then, we drove back home and put our little monsters to bed.

*Halloween Day coloring. This girl LOVES to color, and we couldn't help but print off some cute Halloween coloring pages and color together. Camille wasn't as thrilled with the activity.*

*Our lazy bones pumpkins this year. Very little thought or effort went into these, haha! We'll be cool again someday.*

*We carved pumpkins just a few days before Halloween. Or they would've gone bad before Halloween. It was warm this year!*

*Our Trick-or-Treating group this year. So much fun!*