Halloween 2013

The weekend before Halloween we carved pumpkins, but this year Matt and I opted not to carve our own since we usually end up spending much of the time helping the kids and then we are left to finish our own late into the evening. And thank goodness we only did three because it took long enough to get the seeds and guts out of these three!

Blake followed in his dad's footsteps and broke one of the carving tools (Matt broke a knife last year)

Once it started getting messy, Wyatt took off his jersey and Blake opted to go shirtless (nothing new).

At some point during the process, Sadie took over camera duties and the boys started playing hockey....

...because this is usually how it ends.

Sadie took the only 'before' picture....her very own design on her pumpkin. The boys opted to go with the store-bought design that Matt and I basically ended up carving.

And with the way things have been going this fall, I'm just glad I even remembered to take pictures of the kids on Halloween. I never got pictures of the completed pumpkins, but you can see behind the kids that they actually did get finished!

Spiderman, a blue guy and Dorothy

This may have been Sadie's favorite costume, despite the fact that we have never seen the movie "The Wizard of Oz". But it's always fun when people recognize your costume and she was thrilled that she got to wear bright red lipstick!

The loot....Blake actually stuck it out the longest!! The kids were starting to get cold and Wyatt said his bucket was getting heavy, but this little guy never once said he was cold or that his candy was too heavy. He kept up with those big kids the entire time and loved every minute of it--such a trooper!

Each year we take our candy to a local orthodontist that pays $2/lb for the candy and then sends it overseas to military personnel. It's so wonderful because the kids pick out a few pieces they want to keep and then we don't have candy laying around the house for weeks! Wyatt didn't want to keep any of his candy and just wanted to get the most money while Sadie wanted to keep the most pieces (10 is our max). Ironically, Blake got the most money!

And our new next door neighbors handed out little cans of pop, which my kids thought was the absolute best candy ever!!