Halloween Extravaganza!

We had a great time with our kids this year for Halloween. We realized that last year not only was Ben gone (the lost Indiana months) but I was pregnant and sick. So, we put in a little extra effort to make it special this time around. We started with carving pumpkins. We added a little extra twist- we used power tools! Ben's drill worked great and was fast and easy. Plus, it made pumpkin carving a little more manly for Conner and Ben. Ben decided to carve his pumpkin on its side and make an animal using the stem as the tail. Nice effort. Bad result (sorry!) I actually witnessed people looking closely at the pumpkin trying to figure out what it was (even though Ben wrote with his drill "ZEBRA" across the top. It really didn't look like anything.)

Our next fun even was our spooky dinner. I made Mummies (hot dogs covered in strips of pillsbury crescent rolls) Eyeballs (devilled eggs with olives for the pupils) Witches Brooms (made out of pretzels and fruit by the foot) fingers (carved string cheese with almond slivers for dirty finger nails) and ghots & bat chips (tortillas cut with cookie cutters and broiled in the oven). We even had Witches Blue Brew to drink (Koolaid). We listened to spooky music and had all the lights off with candles on the table.

We also had a great time trick-or-treating. Conner and Kate were great friends and always waited for each other and took turns ringing the door bells. It was such a beautiful night we could have gone on forever. But, alas, Mom and Dad get tired easily. My favorite comment of the night was when we stopped at a house and a nice lady came to the door to apologize for not having candy because they were just moving in. We thanked her and then moved on to the next house. En route to the next jackpot, Kate declared, "Them is upposed to have candy." She got over it fast. Thanks to the neighbors who gave out full-sized candy bars and to the neighbors who create a spook alley in their garage every year.

The highlight of the evening was when Conner was eating a Tootsie Pop and Sadie reached out for it. He let her have a lick... Of course, she loved it!

Check out all the fun in our picture slide show!