No Ordinary Jack-O-Lanterns

This is the post that I wrote yesterday morning, and somehow id didn't post! The rest of the day I was busy preparing for the night, and didn't check in on the blog until now, where I was going to post pictures from last night. I go ahead and post this one now instead, and come back to the other post later...

Gone are the days when the kids just wanted "normal" Jack-O-Lanterns, now they wanted different designs instead. I was a nice mommy and went online to check what I could find that would spark their interest, and I found something for all three.

Isabella was so happy to see that I told her that I could help her cut out Elsa in her pumpkin, and Cassie's favorite from Frozen is Olaf, so she was happy to start carving her pumpkin. I did find all kind of different designs to her theme of "Hungergames", but decided that they were a little bit too advanced for our "carving patience skills" and as Cassie wanted to do it all by herself, she was happy with this design instead.

Ben first wanted to draw on his, but when he saw that the girl's pumpkins turned out pretty nice, he was happy to get his pumpkin design, Captain America's Shield, on his.

Cassie did all her carving on her own, and we had to help Ben and Isabella of course, but I think the pumpkins turned out pretty good! Only, we carved them way too early!! They looked this beautiful on Monday night..and we wanted to do it then as Chris was off work, so we could do it together. BUT, since the first night when I left them out, I have kept them in the fridge (having a huge fridge certainly was helpful here!!) and I hope that they still will look presentable tonight when it's showtime!! The small cut outs, like Ben's star in the middle might suffer a bit, but the bigger cutouts should be fine.

There are so many ways to preserve the pumpkins from turning bad, and to keep them fresh, and I have thought about many of them, but somehow, with three big pumpkins, I just don't want to go through the trouble. Anyone of you that are using these preserving methods?? Dipping them in bleach mix, vinegar, cinnamon, and all kind of special ways..If you have them presented up in a cooler climate for weeks, then it might be worth it, but here in the heat, they'll only survive a few days  anyway. Here it's more of a one night show, maybe over the weekend, and then they go in the trash on Monday.

 Scooping out the guts wasn't the favorite part for the kids.

Look how nice they looked when lit up!

Trunk-Or-Treat With Friends

Here, it's Halloween the whole week!! On Tuesday night, we were invited by our friends to attend their Church's "Trunk-Or-Treat". Many Churches and other places do this, where they get together and like here have food/drinks and then people decorate their cars/trunks and give out candy to the kids that are walking around. This is a safer way of Trick-Or-Treating and especially for little kids this might be good, as they don't have to walk too long as it's all around a parking lot.

Cassie had volleyball, so Chris stayed at home, so he could pick her up from that, but I took Ben and Isabella to meet up with my friend H and family. They have 4 girls and they are so sweet. The oldest, Naomi, goes with our twins in Preschool, and they thought it was great fun to see each other in costumes outside of school!

The kids have had different costumes on for all the Halloween events, and this night Isabella choose her new for this year costume, "Rapunzel". Benjamin decided that he wanted to be "The Incredible Hulk" a costume that I bought him in Sweden in summer. He has another one that is new for this year that he is saving for tomorrow's Trick-Or-Treat!

He's such a clown!

Ben's mask was too hot to wear, and it soon came off. Isabella was hot too under the heavy wig, but she didn't want to take it off and "ruin her costume" as she said, so she kept it on until we got back to the car to go home.  Others in other parts of the country have to worry about it being to cold under the costume, or making sure that jackets etc fits underneath, here it's more the opposite concern. It can't be costumes that are too heavy or too thick, or they will be too warm. It's nevertheless still around 80F/27C after sunset, so it's warm winds even if its' dark outside!

Ben is normally a bit shy, but he was so proud that he was brave and walked up to the people on his own, (with me a few steps away.) and they were all good with using their manners and saying thank you. The little kids were in general much better at waiting in line and saying thank you than the older ones that just ran around from one to the next, almost running over the little ones, holding out their bags and buckets..

Rapunzel had Elsa behind her in one line...

My friend Holly had done such a great job to get all her girls in a theme. N was dressed up as Tinkerbell, T was a pirate, Ty was Peter Pan and baby M was a mermaid. All characters from the story Peter Pan. 

Look at this awesome idea! A lot of work, but really clever to make a pirate ship out of the wagon they pulled along with their two toddlers. I thought that this was really neat, and the kids loved it!

What a fun night, and around 8pm it was time to get the kids home and in bed.

Trunk-Or-Treat

On Friday night, there was a Trunk-Or-Treat on base and I decided to take the kids. It's a safer way of going "Trick-Or-Treat" for kids, where instead of ringing on stranger's doors, they go from car to car that are participating in decorating their trunks and handing out candy. After this event, they had free hotdogs/drinks/snacks and popcorn for everyone to enjoy while watching the movie "Hotel Transylvania" under the stars. This is the third open air movie that we've gone to lately with the kids, and it's really nice to enjoy the warm - not too hot- evenings. Cassie's friends Emma and Haily came with us and the girls dressed up as "Monster Triplets" and Isabella was a Pirate and Benjamin choose to dress up as a Knight.

 

Chris was working his 24 hour shift, and we met up with him outside his office before going to the event. He had been working since 7am and would get off Saturday morning at 7am.

 Ready for the Trunk-Or-Treat!

Benjamin & Isabella!

 

 The "Monster Triplets"

This couple had been very creative. They had dressed up like the vikings in "How To Train Your Dragon" and they had put Wings on their three little dogs with a big sign: "Dragons in training!". Cute and if there had been a prize for best Trunk, they would have won for sure!

After this, we went inside to get dinner and drinks and then we got situated on the lawn with our picnic blanket and chairs to enjoy the movie. Fun event, and Cassie thought it was nice to have her friends with her.

Beautiful Roses

I just love the roses that my children gave me. They were so beautiful, with gorgeous big flowers. Most of the time it's not worth buying roses this way, as they don't seem to hold very long, but these were still as beautiful a week after getting them. They made me smile every time I went pass the dining room table.