Halloween fun

We did so many fun little Halloween things this year that I didn't want to forget, but they didn't each need a post, so here they all are.

Rebecca and her cute melted crayon pumpkin. 

I helped her melt the crayon and she told me how to cute the pumpkins. She went to town with the black paper and made their faces and glued it all together. I guess I did make the dads mouth-she's good at scissors, but not that good yet. Give her another few weeks and she may be! She said it was a "daddy pumpkin and it's baby." She was so proud of her craft project!

 Flying Bats

We wanted a cute, easy and inexpensive decoration for our porch. We decided that flying bats would fit all 3 criterias. We already had the paper, string and eyes. Corrine helped cut out the bats, and then the kids made the faces on the bats. The neon garage sale stickers were awesome to give them bright stand out eyes. We didn't hang as many as we originally thought-the porch ceiling was higher then I realized it was! They looked really neat blowing in the breeze. By the end of the month some got tangled with each other. The kids said they were "mating". I guess that means next year we should have lots of baby bats to hang up!

Pumpkin excitement

Rebecca has been wanting a pumpkin for weeks. Everytime we passed them going in and out of Hyvee she would ask if she could stop and look at them. Today I couldn't take walking past them anymore. She got to pick out her very own little pumpkin to bring home. She was on cloud nine with excitement!! She asked dad to draw a face on it, since it was too small to carve. She LOVED the face dad drew for her and was so proud to put her pumpkin on the front porch for all those passing to see.

Spooky Halloween lunch 

We made Frankenstein faces for the Peanut butter cups, pumpkin faces for the peach cups, monster teeth apple slices, frog eye grapes, mummy juice boxes and fishing rods with fish. Ammon said it was fun and alright. Simeon at 1st said it was kind of embarrassing, but then later told me it was fun and creative and wasn't that bad! Corrine loved it and so did lots of her friends. She told me they said her mom was a good artist and did fun things. Rebecca was so excited for her lunch, she opened it well before lunch and loved it all. It was fun for Johann and I to make even if it was a little embarrassing for the boys!

Halloween soccer treats

Ammon got to bring snack to the last game of the season which was the Saturday before Halloween. We drew faces on mandarin oranges for pumpkins, made ghost rice krispies treats and added a piece of candy to halloween bags. They were super fast to make and a cute treat!
He is such a good and entertaining goalie. He gets right into the mist of legs and feet and kicks the ball away if he can't dive on it. He's been scored on a few times this season, but has stopped many more goals from happening. Also at his last game he scored his 1st goal of the season. What a way to end the season-stopping a handful of goals on your team, and scoring one for your own team!!

 Halloween party and Parade at school

Rebecca and I got to help out with Ammon's Halloween party at school. Stand around and watch a very well tuned class get ready, and then have their party would be a better way to describe what we did. His teacher is amazing, and had the kids prepared for what to do, and we didn't do much but hand a few cups of milk out and take a few pictures.
Rebecca was in her costume and wanted so badly to walk in the parade with the kids. We ended up lining up with his class and walking around the side of the school to the front, then jumping out and watching the rest of it. One of the kindergarten teachers told us she should have walked with them. She would have LOVED that!! I love our school!!

Grandpa Smith

We went to visit Great Grandpa Smith in Muscatine for his birthday. While we were visiting there was a Halloween party going on with games, treats and trick or treating. Rebecca was the only one in a costume, but that didn't stop us from having fun! I had brought some suckers with me and had told the kids they could have one if they were behaving during the visit. I didn't need to hand any of the earned suckers because they had a bag of their own candy to much on.

Pumpkin Patch

We ran out of time to make it to an official pumpkin patch this year. Boo! Fall is too busy-we need to figure that out. One day we dropped Ammon off at Taekwondo and ran to Hyvee on Waterfront to grab a few things. They had an awesome pumpkin display out front of the store. Simeon was more interested in getting back to his book, (that sentence brings me so much joy!!) but the girls really enjoyed checking out the pumpkins. Getting your picture taken outside a grocery store might be too much for the older kids, so Rebecca was the only one with a ready smile for me.

We had such a fun October getting ready for Halloween. I love the excitement and joy the kids get out of everything we did. It makes the time and energy we put into doing these activities so incredibly worth it!

Halloween 2012

Tonight was the night the kids have been looking forward to all month long. 

The costumes on were on, faces were painted, and candy buckets were ready.

 

They were ready to go get treats!

Simeon 

He had his heart set on being Drizzt from books written by RA Salvatore. His white hair, black face, twin swords and black cape completed the costume. Simeon started reading these books a few months ago, and instantly became obsessed with them. Johann read these books when he was a teenager, so we already own all the books. Simeon has dove in head first into them and is loving them. He's also  gotten his friend into them too. He's been talking about his costume for a few months and was so excited when it all came together and especially when we bought him face paint.

Corrine 

She had a change of heart on her costume after I had her cowgirl vest made. Last year she was a cowgirl, and decided to just be that again. Then a few days after finishing her vest, she told me she might want to be a vampire. I wasn't sure we could make the switch so close to Halloween, but luckily for her I found a vampire cape for $2 just days ago. She liked putting fake blood on her face. A friend gave her some "vampire blood" hand sanitizer today from Bath & Body works.

Ammon 

He had 1 plan in his mind for his costume and it needed to be home made. I took him to the fabric store to pick out material for his costume. We had the store worker laughing over our conversation about what this robe should look like and what type of material it should be made out of.It was a comical interchange trying to figure it out! I tried to buy a pre-made robe, but it wasn't right, so I needed to make one. Ammon wanted silver on the shoulders and hip. We worked together to figure out how big and where to put them. When he saw the robe ready, he was SO EXCITED! It was exactly what he wanted! He had elf ears, but they wouldn't stay on to save our lives. We tried everything from duct tape, to sticky goo and ended up taping them on across with scotch tape. We tried to tape his ear pointed, but he said it really hurt, so that only lasted for a few minutes for the pictures.

Rebecca 

She was our sweet and sassy cowgirl Jessie. She got her Jessie hat at Disneyland this summer, and her Woody & Buzz boots were from last winter. I made the chaps 1st and loved how they turned out. Her chaps were out of the same material as Corrine cowgirl vest that she decided not to wear. The shirt top was a bit harder to make for some reason. Sewing the shinny red ribbon on the front made it all come together. She has been wearing this everywhere the last few days. It's gotten pretty dirty and now that Halloween is over I can finally wash it. The hat was hard to keep on, so instead you got to see her ringlet pigtails-and yes those curls are completely hers! She sweet talked her daddy into being Woody. How could he say no to her. I was suppose to be Bullseye, but got away just carrying a Bullseye toy!

Tonight was the end of an era for our family. We made a decision years ago that the kids can trick or treat while in elementary school, and after that they get to hand out candy. So this was our last time going out trick or treating as a whole family. Simeon is actually really excited to stay home and give candy out next year. We came home for a short time tonight and the kids so wanted kids to come over so they could give them candy!

After trick or treating the kids all dumped their spoils in the front room. Ammon quietly went through his stach, then told us that he took out all the he wanted and we could have the rest. He only took about 20% of his candy and it was almost all sour candy. He left all the chocolate!! Rebecca did a similar thing separating her most wanted candy from the rest. When Johann said then he'd take the rest, she got very protective and started collecting and laying on it like a mother hen. She decided that she did want it all after all! Corrine was so sweet with Rebecca trick or treating. Rebecca got tired and wanted to ride in the stroller, so Corrine collected for her. If a house said take 2 or 3, she would keep one and give the other to Corrine. Corrine is a great big sister!

The kids said their favorite house was one by Grandma and Grandpa Smiths who let them pick out a Matchbox car or a beanie baby. Rebecca carried her duck holding an Easter egg the rest of the night. She's in love with that little ducky!

We love Halloween!!

Pumpkins, hammers and cookie cutters

Tonight was our annual pumpkin carving night. The kids are always so excited for this night. Since it was Monday night this was also our Family Home Evening.

We realized during dinner that we hadn't brought the pumpkins in to warm up. The kids ran out and grabbed them to put in front of heater vents in the hope of warming them up. No such luck for the boys and their bigger pumpkins!

We tried out an new idea this year to help carve out pumpkins-COOKIE CUTTERS. The metals ones worked awesome!! We'll be looking for some new fun metal cookie cutters for next year.

Rebecca right away saw the pig cookie cutter and wanted that on her pumpkin. Since we live in Iowa a pig was the perfect thing to put on a pumpkin. She did a great job hammering the pumpkin cutter in for the nose and mouth. It was fun to watch her drive in and clean her pumpkin out without any hesitation this year.

Ammon got working on his first, but his had the most innards in it and took the looongest getting it cleaned out. He wanted a scary mouth, so he choose a spikey leaf cookie cutter. He made lots of leaf shapes joined together. Dad the dentist came to the rescue with a chisel to knock the "teeth" out of his pumpkin.

Simeon had the biggest pumpkin with very thick flesh. That made it harder to use the cookie cutters. We found out the hard-breaking-the-pumpkin-kind-of-way that plastic cookie cutters do NOT work on the pumpkins very well. We ended up braking the areas between the letters on his name.
He so wanted his head to fit inside his pumpkin-but the whole was just a bit too small.

Corrine was a super scraper and got her pumpkin cleaned out the fastest. She wanted an IOWA mouth for her pumpkin. She was also our super patient kiddo waiting for the hammer and letters. After seeing that Simeon's pumpkin was breaking from all the hammering on the plastic letters, she decided that her patience paid off and we used the letters as an outline and free handed her IOWA letters.

After we took their finished masterpieces outside and lit them, the kids ran through the giant leaf piles on the curb waiting to be vacuumed up this week. Thankfully the lights we got for the pumpkins have a 100 hour battery life because we left them on ALL NIGHT!! I hope anyone driving by in the night, enjoyed our jack-o-lanterns!

Pumpkin carving night is always so much fun and so messy-but absolutely SO worth it! 

Now we get to enjoy all those yummy roasted pumpkin seeds!

Halloween 2011

Halloween this year the kids all dressed up in costumes that fit perfectly with their personalities.

Simeon was a BYU football player.


He still lives, eats, breathes and lives for sports, especially BYU and the Chargers.


Corrine was a cowgirl in PINK boots and hat.



Corrine is in LOVE with horses, and asks every week if we can get a horse, or hamster or guinea pig or rabbit or dog. She wants to live on a farm and have horses.


Ammon was Peter the Knight from Narnia.




Ammon could wear this outfit everyday. He loves to imagine he's got dragons and he's the brave knight with his homemade sword. His noble steed stayed home from this journey.


Rebecca was a cuddly yet fierce lion.





Rebecca is such a sweet little girl that is starting to get an independent streak. Her costume was soft and cuddly like her most of the the time, but watch out-there's a fierce roar in there that can come out at any time!

Cousin Halloween

The kids had a great time playing with thier Smith cousins this weekend. They had forgotten thier halloween costumes at home, so they borrow some of ours for the Halloween party at the church.

We had a BYU football player, A cowgirl in pink, a red dragon, Peter the Knight, Edmund the Knight, a cuddly lion and a flying unicorn.


Corrine was having such a great time with her vampire teeth.



Audrey and Rebecca were taking turns sitting on Grandma's lap, then they both climbed on at the same time.

Jack-O-Lanterns

Tonight was our annual carving of our Jack-o-Lanterns. Grandma & Grandpa Smith had the kids over for a sleepover a few weekends back and they took them to get their pumpkins.


Rebecca picked out what shapes she wanted for her eyes, nose and mouth. She was alright with reaching in and pulling some gunk out from her pumpkin. She was super excited to see her jack-o-lantern come to life.



Ammon had his heart set on carving a tree and grave stone with a hand and RIP written on it. We aren't that great at carving pumpkins, so we went for a tombstone with RIP and a hand on it.
Corrine wanted to also go the traditional face way like Rebecca. Dad helped her carve her pumpkin.
Simeon had an idea in his head and he started cutting before realizing that he was cutting too much out and it was going to be a big open hole in the side of his pumpkin. We had to improvise and ended up with a face which he decided to have it eat Ammon's baby bear pumpkin.
The kids were so excited and loud when we lit our jack-o-lantern outside. We love pumpkin carving time!!

Look what we found!

Remember back at the beginning of the summer when my sweet Ammon wanted to plant a pumpkin for Halloween. He picked out a baby bear pumpkin plant and planted it, watered it, weeded (somewhat willingly) and checked on it so lovingly.




All summer long we have been watching the vine grow, orange flowers bloom, and a little green pumpkin start to grow, then watched it fall off and turn brown. The vine grew and grew all summer and the flowers were coming by the handfuls, but no little pumpkins.

Then came Sept 30th. I was talking to my sister Lisa in Idaho on the phone. It was a beautiful warm fall day, so I was sitting outside talking to her. She was telling me about their pumpkins that her kids grew this summer. I thought I should go check on ours to see if the vine had made it to the front of the house.

That was when I saw this...


Just weeks earlier we had looked all over the vine, but hadn't seen any pumpkins. But there it was hidden underneath some hostas that had started to die back from the cooler nights.

That afternoon when Ammon got home from school I told him I had a surprise for him after he got his chores done. He hurried and got everything done so that he could find out the surprise. He was so excited to see that he had indeed grown a pumpkin. It was mostly orange with some green streaks on it.

The vine took off this summer. We had to keep pushing it back into the planter box so we could mow around it. It wound it's way around the fireplace and started heading towards the front yard, but stopped just short of turning the front corner of the house. The other end went towards the back yard. It caught hold of the bush on that side of the yard and grew up into the bush. It's really pretty to see the orange pumpkin flowers blooming amid the leaves in the bush.




Today we checked on it and it was completely orange and ready to be cut off the vine. Ammon finished up his raking real quick so that he could cut it off. What excitement there was for Ammon to be holding his very 1st homegrown pumpkin!!




He set it with the pumpkins they picked out last week. It looks so small compared to the others, but to him it's the greatest thing!