Halloween 2013

We had a really fun Halloween this year! Kayci dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Noble was Spider-man.

We started the evening off by going to take photos of the kids in their costumes. Then we headed over to Grandma's for some early trick-or-treating and then the REAL fun began...

Every year we take off from our house and walk almost half a mile to find houses that are handing out candy. It seems like there are fewer and fewer every year. By the time we finally get there, the kids are tired of walking and we're just ready to be done already. Then there's the long walk home... So this year we got smart and drove to the street in our neighborhood where we usually trick-or-treat. That worked out well. The kids visited several houses and we loaded up in the car to go home for dinner (we had picked up Schlotzki's).

We watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and then headed out to the porch for our real favorite part of the evening - handing out candy. We didn't have as many trick-or-treaters as normal, but that's okay. The kids got to hand out some candy to a few kids before it was time to head inside for bed.

The kids were exhausted after their day. Noble, in fact. was so tired that after I read him his story, he just rolled over and fell right asleep. That almost never happens.

It was a fun day, but MommyGirl was happy to get the house back to normal and went around last night taking down the Halloween decorations and putting up the Harvest decor.

Here are a few photos of the kids in their costumes. Enjoy!

The Graveyard

We love Halloween! The kids and I have been working for the past several days to build headstones for a graveyard Halloween decoration for our front yard.

We started with some old foamcore conference posters that were going to be thrown away at work. Kayci and I drew the outlines of grave markers on the posters and I cut them out.

Then Kayci spray painted the cut posters gray and both she and I decorated them with marker. Noble got in on the act, too. He spray painted a gold glitter skull that we found in the dollar spot at Target and drew on the backs of the grave markers.

Then - under the cover of dusk - Kayci and I carefully built our graveyard on the hill in our front yard.  I dug up the ground in front of each grave, as if it were freshly opened (either by grave robbers or by the dead rising from their tombs - take your pick!). And the final piece was the skull - I partially buried it in front of one of the graves, and it looks pretty amazing.

But then the cool front blew in. I awoke this morning and looked out the window to see all but one of the graves laying down. So I went out and picked up the gravestones and will put them back in place when the wind dies down a bit. But luckily I got out last night and snapped some photos of the Stone Street graveyard before the wind kicked up.

"Trick or Treat! Gimme Candy!"

This was the first Halloween that Noble got to experience trick-or-treating. And he did - it Noble-style.