Pre-Halloween Festivities

With kids in the house, Halloween is more than a one day event.  The costumes must be planned at least a month out, lest the desired costume be sold out!  There are festivities at preschool and pumpkins to be prepped...

First up was the creation of this year's Book Character Pumpkin.  This is a library-sponsored project for the elementary school.  We learned a few lessons from last year, most importantly was to use a CRAFT PUMPKIN and not a real one.  Even though there were other Pigeons there this year, we were all still very pleased with our finished product.  The kids did the painting, I did the gluing.  And in case you're wondering, a hot glue gun will melt a pool noodle.

The annual Noah's Ark Parade at the preschool.  Not an official Halloween celebration, animal costumes only.  I talked Annabelle into a pretty peacock costume this year.  Their class made rainbows to wave during the parade - love that they didn't forget the end of the story!

A sweet neighbor kept Annabelle so that I could go volunteer in the STEM lab for Sam's Pumpkin Science investigation.  I take any chance I can to participate in the classroom!

There is also no official Halloween celebration at the elementary school.  It did, however, land at the end of Red Ribbon Week, a week that encourages some type of silly addition to your normal wardrobe each day.  This year's PTA chairs were able to talk the principle into "dress as your dream job" for Friday, so the kids got a costume day after all.  And believe it or not, we were able to pull off Sam's dream job with minimal effort thanks to a borrowed costume.  He's been stuck on Lifeflight Helicopter Pilot for 2 years now!

I tried really hard to make a fun Halloween lunch for Sam.  Once in the lunch box, the monster mouths melted, the container burst open and there was a chocolate slime all over everything in the lunch box.  Epic fail.

Once again I took Annabelle to ZooBoo with our dear friends.  I thought seriously about not telling Sam for fear of a jealous meltdown, but he took the whole thing in stride - especially when I reminded him that he got to go when he was in preschool.  He even asked her questions about it when he got home and looked at pictures.  I am so proud of him when I see these moments of maturity in him.

The big day was forecasted to be a rain fest.  The promise was fulfilled when we woke to rain and canceled football games on Saturday morning.  Fortunately by lunch it was all clearing up and we had a chance to carve our pumpkins ahead of the big event.  Sam was all about getting his hands in there and pulling the guts out this year - Annabelle not so much.