Halloween Hullabaloo

We spent all of last weekend in a giant extravaganza of Halloween activities of all shapes and sizes.  The kids had off school on October 26 and that proved to be a great kick-off to a weekend of fun!

Our first stop was the Public Museum's Halloween event.  We got free tickets via Steve's company and we supplemented them with a Planetarium show for the big kids and Steve.  Everyone is supposed to wear their costumes - what fun!  Unfortunately, we got off to a bit of a late start (what's new?) and then hit a ridiculous amount of traffic and were late.  The tickets are, as is clearly explained when you purchase them, for ONE TIME SLOT ONLY!!!  I was sorely disappointed, but was glad we'd be able to enjoy the rest of the evening.  When we arrived, the helpful woman at the ticket booth offered to switch us to the 6:45 or she said that actually they'd just begun and we were welcome to go on in (well, those of us with tickets).  Steve wasn't sure he wanted to do that - you know, the whole "making a scene" thing...but I convinced him to scurry off with the bigs and he did.  Carter and I passed the time looking at an aquatic dinosaur skeleton ("he gotta LOT of neck, Mama!"), letting him weigh himself on a scale that gave your weight on each planet, the moon, and the sun and perusing the gift shop.  The gift shop proved to be the most fun for me - it was virtually empty and Carter was really enjoying examining all of the wares.  Soon enough the others had rejoined us and all enjoyed the planetarium show.  Steve admitted he was glad I'd sent them.  I was relieved!  We took the freight elevator, which was all decked out for Halloween, up to the third floor and gave the "haunted hallway" a try.  It was far more haunted than I anticipated and poor Carter was in tears for at least half of it.  After that, we tried a craft in the North American mammals section and then decided it was time to start meandering our way toward home.  We had a very sleepy Carter on our hands.  Once we passed all of the "Halloween events", though, the kids kind of perked up.  I was really glad that Steve got the chance to see how excited the kids get about the museum exhibits!  They were just thrilled to be back.  I'm sure the randomly scattered trick or treat stations helped!  It was indeed time to go home, though, and no one argued when we announced that it was time to go.  I'm hoping we'll be back next year because it sure was a great time, and we saw some pretty amazing costumes!  All three little pumpkins were out cold by the time we got home - a rarity and a sure sign they had a great time!

Saturday had us at the pumpkin farm after a luxuriously lazy morning.  It was cold, but it was Carter's first time and all three kids loved every minute!  Carter pulled the wagon with 60lbs of pumpkins in it all by himself!  I was pretty impressed.  We bought up plenty of baking pumpkins and some squash and it goes without saying that the kids were beyond excited to feed the goats.  Carter, not surprisingly, had no fear of them at all.

Chilled, we came on home and while Steve worked on Kailin's loft bed in the garage, the kids played outside and I warmed up some cider for them all.  (I stayed inside to crochet - this mama is no man's fool!)  In for a warm supper and bed.

Sunday was church and Sunday School and then we carved our pumpkins (which had needed to warm up from 40 degrees the day before!).  Carter drew about 12 eyes on his mock-up, so 12 eyes we did!  It turned out kind of like a spider and it was pretty cool!  Kailin started with the idea of a cat, but kind of moved away from it.  However, she did a bang-up job of drawing, transferring, and carving her own design. Colby made a design with an incredibly intricate mouth with pointy sharp teeth.  Steve helped him carve the mouth and it turned out really well!

We finished just in time for me to put some hot chocolate on the stove and hurry the kids into their costumes for trick or treat.  Our community always does trick or treat from 4-7 on the last Sunday of the month.  That's just how it is.  It was far chillier outside than I'd thought, but the kids made it to quite a few houses before Carter started to get cold and wanted to come home.  I think the kids had just as much fun handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters who stopped by as they did going out trick-or-treating themselves!  It was a great way to end our weekend of Halloween fun.  I know the kids are already counting down to next year!





**I've now spent an insane amount of time trying to get the pictures to flow with the text the way they used to.  I'm giving up.  Blogger fixed something that wasn't broken and now it is broken.  Grrrr!!!**