Halloween Extravaganza 2010

So I know I am crazy but I am putting ALL of our Halloween-y activities into one gigantic post. Halloween with kids is fun but holy moly it is BUSY. I think I’m still recovering from all of the festivities. It makes me tired just looking at all the pictures!

So buckle up your safety belts because it’s gonna be a long ride. If you make it through to the end maybe I’ll save you a fun-sized Kit Kat. Or maybe I ate all of them.

Halloween2010: The Costumes
Getting a picture of all three kids is a feat and this is the best one of the bunch. Introducing….

Super Mario Brandon and his sidekick, Mini Mario. Don’t worry, he wore that funny red hat for WEEKS. Weeks I tell you. And it still hasn’t ended.

And next we have Annie the “flower princess.”

This was her costume for her ballet performance in May, Coppelia. It was awesome to already have a costume ready to go for Halloween!

I am not good at doing fancy hair-do’s but I whipped up those fabric rosettes and pinned some curls and she was good to go. When did my baby Annie-cakes grow up?????? That is what I want to know. Her big 5th birthday is coming up on Sunday!!!!

And finally we have Miss Cinderella herself!

Haylie is wearing the costume Annie wore when she was almost 2, so it was another easy costume! Hooray! She also wore this thing pretty much every single day. For a month.

Haylie even held still long enough for me to do “princess hair.” Miraculous!

Loving this picture. She is one cute and hilarious chickie.

School Parade:

The school parade….every parent’s favorite event. You get there, try to find parking that’s not a mile away from the school while toting your younger kids in their costumes along with bags of treats and games for the class party you said you’d be a room mother for but can’t even attend the party because you have another party to go to. And then if you are able to find a seat (thanks to friends who saved seats for practically our whole neighborhood!! Awesome!) and you get to wait for ages for the parade to begin while entertaining those sweet little kids. And your video camera is dead. And the settings on your camera are weird and this is the best picture of your kid that you got at the parade because he passes you by in a split second. Good times!

At least we got this cute pic while we were waiting! Look at all these fun friends of Haylie’s. One of these things is not like the other…. we didn’t get the “witch memo.” Cute kids, I love ’em.

Annie’s Dance Party:
Annie’s ballet studio does a fabulous Halloween party every year during each class. They get to wear their costumes and the studio is decked out and they dance to fun Halloween music and get treats galore.

Ms. Barbara goes all out as a witch with her brew! Annie is always afraid to drink the brew at first, after all, it’s made of worm guts and bat wings and slime. Then it magically turns into Ms. Barbara’s delicious homemade root beer.

What a darling class! Annie LOVES dance and being with a whole bunch of her cute friends from the neighborhood. Notice how Annie has a “twin.” Eliza is her dear friend who was in Coppelia with her in the spring. They thought it was so fun to be matching.

Family Party #1:

Jaden’s family has a fun party each year and we were excited to have everyone here, even our Texas branch of the fam! (Thanks Amy for some of these pics)

Jaden and his “little” brothers….

The ladies….

Grandma Judy planned out lots of fun games and treats and treasure hunts. The kids had a blast. Yes, Brandon is wearing a curly mullet wig under his big red hat. Classic.

Playing Halloween bingo….

The mummy toilet paper game…with Grandpa Judd eating pizza while getting wrapped up. Love it.

Cute cousin Hendrix the skeleton.  I’m missing pics of Cash and Chloe, bummer! But it was a wild and fun time with Grandma and Grandpa and the cousins. We also had a fun birthday breakfast the next morning and loved spending time with everyone.

Pumpkin Carving:

We finally got around to carving our pumpkins Saturday afternoon! I’ll admit, it’s not my most favorite thing to do, at least the scooping out of the innards. The outcome is fun though.

Brandon and Jaden working on his biggie pumpkin.

Annie wanted one with a happy face and a purple bow. I carved this one, it’s about as fancy as I can get. Creative, eh? I am definitely not a pumpkin carving expert, not even close.  Oh, and don’t mind my children who look a little bit like they’re homeless. We didn’t comb our hair until later that night, hee hee.

This is one of my favorites ever. Back story: Haylie has this metal rod from one of their doll cribs, and she likes to pretend that it’s a “bi-win.” Aka a VIOLIN. She uses her arm, just like in the picture, and moves the rod like a violin bow. This is her hilarious performance face I was able to catch. This cracks me up!!!!

Oooh, my hunky hubby. It took forever to get the junk out of that huge pumpkin.

Aaaaand, the red hat makes another appearance. They were working on Brandon’s Mario pumpkin design together.

Here are the finished pumpkins on our porch! It was FRIGID and rainy and windy and I couldn’t keep the pumpkins lit for more than a few seconds.

Jaden and the gang crazy enough to brave the terrible weather for trick or treating…I was sick (like last Halloween) and got to stay home and pass out candy. Boy was I glad when they were all back home and warm in their beds!!

Family Get-together #2:

Sunday we hung out at my parents’ house with the fam for delicious homemade scones (oooh, with homemade honey butter and homemade raspberry jam!) and homemade hot chocolate. I sense a homemade theme here. My stomach is growling just thinking about the yumminess. (Thanks for the pics, Megan)

Then the night turned into sort of an impromptu sing-a-long/talent show. Out came the guitars, mandolin, and even my mom’s flute was dusted off! All we were missing was Ben’s crazy keyboard skillz. Gotta love the family band.
Then we decided to sing a group number of “Lucky” by Jason Mraz and Colbie Callait, just on the spot. It was actually WAY fun even though I was hacking my lungs half the time and really had no voice.  I love this picture because we’re all laughing and I’m cry-laughing and Ty looks like he’s belting out opera with his bongo. My dad threatened to post the video of it on Facebook. Ahhh, the joys of living in the era of social media, aka blackmail.

I love family. Family is the coolest. Jaden and I lucked out in that department for sure.

So, there you have it! Another Halloween extravaganza for the history books. Now, where is that last piece of Halloween candy?? It’s sounding good right about now.

xoxo