These little monsters were literally counting down the days to Halloween, and were SO excited for all the fun Halloween things we had planned! Holidays are so much fun with little kids around--definitely making it one of the best parts of being a parent!
We bought this Rapunzel wig from Target for Leah's costume, and literally 5 minutes out of the bag it already turned into the swamp thing. It was a H-O-T M-E-S-S, but Leah wore it any chance she could get and you could just tell she felt so beautiful with her luscious long "Punzel" locks! How could I secretly throw it away and burst her little bubble?!?
As any mom of my generation would do, I turned to Pinterest for a solution, and it said to soak the wig overnight in fabric softener to de-tangle it, and I followed the directions to the letter, but to no avail. That thing was just as hideous as ever! Oh well. The name of the movie was "Tangled," after all.
Friday morning the kids had their school's Halloween parade and party. When Leah saw Lucy and Zach all dressed up before breakfast, naturally she wanted to wear her costume too. We dropped them off, and then Leah and I waited in the FREEZING cold outside for the kids to come walk around the building in their costumes, but she refused to wear a coat! That dress was just too beautiful to cover up I guess.
Here's my little Zach-O dressed up as a Storm Trooper, very shy, and walking very quickly so all I got was this picture of him not even looking at us. We caught his attention and cheered for him, but all we got was a little tiny wave. He cracks me up!
And Miss Lucy with her classmates, as Hermione Granger. She was happy to see us at least! Her class got to go trick or treating later that morning at a nearby nursing home, which doubled as a service activity but was also a lot of fun for everyone.
That night the school had a Trunk or Treat in the parking lot for all the families. Right after Lucy's piano lesson (which are Fridays from 5-6) we hurried back over to the school and got ready for some candy action (and a beautiful Colorado sunset)!! ((Notice Zach in his 3rd costume of the week-- back as the Cap. It's so hard to settle on one when there are so many awesome super heroes!))
Jon met us there from work and I was sure glad to see him. It was total chaos, so it was nice to have an extra set of hands to help herd our crazy kids who kept running from car to car and getting lost in the melee!
Isn't she so gorgeous?? She loved seeing her friends from school and all of the teachers who had dressed up. Even if it was freezing, we're sure glad we made it.
Jon worked Saturday, so to keep the kids occupied while I cleaned the house and got ready for our Halloween party later on, I had them make some "witch hats" for the party. They all love crafts, and anything to do with cookies and sprinkles is a great way to keep them out of trouble. Our Saturday was jam-packed, so we had to keep to a pretty tight schedule.
I, for one, thought their witch hats looked and tasted GREAT!
When Jon finally got home from work the kids were TOTALLY surprised to see Daddy dressed up for Halloween! The office had all dressed up and the theme was Harry Potter, so Jon dressed up like Professor Snape. What a good sport!
As soon as he got home, we hurried over to Lucy's piano recital. It was with DEMTA (a piano and music teachers' association here in Colorado that Lucy's teacher works with), so it involved kids from several different teachers, but all of them had to wear a costume and play a Halloween-themed song. She'll have several of these recitals throughout the year, so this was actually a really fun first recital to be invited to!
Lucy played "Crawling Spider," a duet with her teacher. She didn't even seem nervous at all and she didn't mess up once. We were so proud of her! Leah loved seeing all of the kids in their costumes, and most of the songs were short and sweet and very spooky, so she even did great sitting still.
All of the pianists after the recital. I don't know how so many of the boys played their songs with super hero masks on, but they did it! Great job, Luce!
As soon as we got back from the recital, we got ready for our party. It's our tradition to have donuts on Halloween (I'm not sure how that started, but I seem to remember my Grandma Charlie always bringing us over glazed donuts on Halloween), and I was totally having a baby-craving for the pumpkin cake donuts from Dunkin Donuts. Thanks to a little 25 minute detour to Aurora to the closest DD location (right before Lucy's recital), I got my wish!
Lucy helped me make the "potion bottles" for our drinks. I love that she's becoming a second set of hands to help with all of this stuff!
Jeremy and Kylene brought over pumpkin-shaped pizzas from Papa Murphy's, so while they were baking I'd found a cute scavenger hunt on Pinterest for the kids to do. They had no trouble figuring out the clues and they had a blast running around the house following the trail on this little treasure hunt!
I also printed off some cute monster coloring pages for them to do while waiting. We turned on the soundtrack to the Haunted Mansion, and had a great party with lots of yummy, spooky food!
And finally, it was time to get dressed and ready for trick or treating. My beautiful Rapunzel with her lovely wig, was ready to hit the streets for some candy! She was so fun to watch with her siblings and cousins getting ready-- she kept saying, "Mommy, this is the best Halloween ever!" And boy, does she sure love her red lipstick!
Our very own Hermione and cute cousin Sophie as Rainbow Dash. These two are peas in a pod!
And finally, Zach-O as the very tough looking Iron Man. He was so cute while trick or treating-- at every house he would ask for Sophie if they had any peanut-free candies because "his cousin had a peanut allergy." He's always very concerned for her and always tells me to check before we have them over to make sure there's no peanuts! He was also very protective of Leah and Isaac--since they were smaller and slower than the big kids, he'd periodically come up to me and ask if they'd gotten candy too before moving on to the next house. He melts my heart.
My one picture of all the kids in action! We did a couple of streets and cul de sacs, and within an hour or so, they already had full buckets of candy, and even some full-sized candy bars!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2015
We had such a fun holiday, especially since we had family to share it with! Although I'm sad to see October go, we're excited it's November, with Leah's birthday and Thanksgiving coming right up. Tis the season for lots of fun parties and many memories to make!
