Monday, before Halloween, we gathered at Grandma Sue's house for pizza, cookies, and pumpkin carving. We had a great evening. It was fun to play, eat, and just be with cousins. I de-gutted quite a few pumpkins before we went and Brandt and Blythe helpfully sat at the counter and said "Ewwww" a lot. We toasted some pumpkin seeds and planned our carving.
On the way to Grandma Sue's at 5:30pm, the temperature was 70 degrees.
Here is the proof.
As I said last week, I am not really ready for cold weather, so I was delighted it was so pleasant.
The table was decorated with small white pumpkins and candy corns.
By the end of the evening, some of the decorations had been consumed.
A whole lot of the pizza was consumed too.
After dinner we decorated cookies.
Check out that black bat!
And the cute boys.
Lots of cute people, in fact.
Luke and Blake.
Guy and Mikayla.
Blythe and Makenna
Missy, her future sister-in-law Jackie, and her brother Richard
I love this black frosting covered mug.
Grandma working on cookies.
Me too, but I'm very blurry.
Collin suspiciously eyeing that cookie.
Looks tasty to me.
Guy decorated with cookie with a howling wolf.
Sharae and Collin
Cutting out cookies with Grandma.
I think both Donovan and Kent have cookie in their mouths.
Cookie number two, eaten as soon as it was decorated.
Blythe got a bit carried away with the green sprinklers.
Carving made easier with the help of small people.
Guy started a fire with pods from the locust tree.
Then the children danced wildly around the flames.
Sparklers too.
Guy, Blake, Luke, Brandt
Halloween morning dawned bright and clear. Both Brandt and Blythe emerged from their bedrooms dressed in their costumes. They didn't take them off all day. Brandt's costume was a camouflaged Army guy complete with padded bulging muscles. He is so skinny and the suit was so clingy it really showed off his physique. The costume came with a black furry van dyke and a knife. He wore the facial hair to school but it didn't last even through lunch. He didn't take the knife to school.
These are funny poses.
Blythe's costume was, in her words, "Tangled." She was Rapunzel. This is the only picture I got of her in her full costume because it was the only time she wore the wig. The hair "bugged" her. However, considering that Rapunzel has all her hair cut off at the end of the movie, Blythe still looked like her, just with her short brown hair.
Here we are waiting with Shaylee (in the cheerleading outfit) and Autumn Howell.
Autumn has glitter in her hair and on her face.
Unsurprisingly, Blythe wanted glitter too.
For some reason, the camera did not take a decent picture the whole costume parade.
I don't know what I did wrong.
So here is the best shot of the bunch, and it isn't very good.
Can you even tell it's Brandt?
On our way out of school, we passed by Brandt's classroom and I asked Ms. Medaris if we could take a picture of everyone in their costume. I think all these little people are certainly fun.
Ms. Medaris
Marissa, Omar, Keirztiin, Lily, Lisa, Greyson, Brandt, Andrew, Alex, Jayden, Izaiah, Ella
Monica, Kayla, Abbie, Morgan, Oakley, David, Kelton, Kyle, Josef
Rodrigo and Connor
Giving me scary Halloween faces.
Our afternoon and evening were super busy. Our across the street neighbors, the Hills, have hosted a hot dog party in their garage every Halloween for the past 27 years. 27! This year, they were going to be out of town and asked us if we would be willing to host the party if they would get us everything we needed. The thing about his hot dog party is that it has grown a lot in the past couple of years. Last year, Joan told me she served 350 hot dogs. 350! So although I knew it would be a lot of work, we agreed to host. She brought me 350 hot dogs, chips and cheese for nachos, and wished us good luck.
The day before Halloween I cleaned out the garage and set up tables. On Halloween Mikayla and Guy came to help set up, then at 5:30 Heidi and Darren came to help, and people began arriving. We had the hot dogs and nachos as well as homemade rootbeer (our contribution to the partying). We cooked hot dogs until 8:30, and although we did not serve all 350, we did serve about 280. In addition to the excellent help of the Tanners all night, Eva Fisher and Jim Wilson also came to help. It was something--fun to see everyone, nice to visit, a great opportunity to serve. And although Joan suggested we might take over the tradition, I am fairly confident that this was a one-shot deal for us. I might consider making homemade rootbeer to distribute from my front porch, but I certainly wouldn't want to go to all the work and expense again if it were just us. We did have a great time, and the weather was so lovely, we never even needed to put on a jacket.
Guy, Mikayla, and Kila in their Halloween costumes.
Kila has a skeleton costume too.
A tub of hotdogs.
Kent manning the grill in the garage
and our earliest arrivals.
We have a portion of our driveway that has settled creating a fairly sizable lip.
I was certain that if we had 350 people come to our house for a hotdog,
286 of them would trip over that lip.
Here is my solution.
I stacked pumpkins and a potted mum with a sign.
Only one person tripped, but it was a tween on roller blades and he wasn't anywhere close to the problem spot.
Because Kent and I were heavily involved in hotdog cooking and distribution,
Guy and Mikayla took Brandt and Blythe trick-or-treating.
They were not gone too long.
Brandt was anxious to get back to our house where all the action was.
As a result, very little candy to hide.
Or pilfer.
Grandma Dawn stopped by with McKenna and Greyson for a hotdog and visit.
McKenna never stood still long enough for me to a get a picture of her.
When I said the children were in their costumes all day long, I wasn't exaggerating.
Here is Blythe, sound asleep in her bed, wearing her Rapunzel dress.
It was a wonderful Halloween!
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