Halloween 2011

This year our little gang went trick-or-treating as the peanuts gang: Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus.  Unfortunately they weren't posing very well.  All three of them at least. 
I shared these photos on facebook the other day, but I know that not all the blog readers out there are FB friends with me.  So I thought I'd share them here as well.
The actual costumes were fairly basic and I like how easy they were for the kids to wear and move in them.  They were all tee shirt based.  The boys just needed simple embellishments: a black zig zag for Charlie and a scrap of blue fleece tacked on for Linus.  Even Lucy's dress was made out of a tee shirt--two actually.  The top of the dress is a small shirt and the skirt portion is the bottom of a large shirt.  I cut the large shirt just under the arm holes and attached it to the bottom of the small shirt--no hemming!  The scallop around the collar was cut out of the chest and sleeve part of the large shirt.  And since it's knit and a costume, I just left the scallop edges raw.  Four quick buttons and Lucy had her dress.  Throw in a black wig that we gave a haircut and her look was complete.

A few days before Halloween I took the older yahoos to a local hardware store to pick out some pumpkins from their make shift pumpkin patch.  Sadly, in Juneau this is as close as we get to having a real pumpkin patch.  I hope those of you who have one within a short driving distance appreciate it.  I now know how cool and unique Sauvie Island Farms is for those in the Portland area.  I did take the little miss there once when we lived in the area, but she was only 6 months old so she didn't technically create any lasting memories.  Once day it'd be nice to be go on a trip somewhere in October if nothing else just to enjoy our kids experiencing a real pumpkin patch.

For now, we'll enjoy what we have and be happy to have pumpkins to carve.  Kind of nice in a way that our kids don't really know any differently.

With pumpkins picked and pictures posed for, it was time to carve.  Both of the older two got into things with daddy and scooped the "guts" out.

 

The little babe gobbled up his snacks and was annoyed to be restrained rather than "helping".

He really got into the carving this year and even designed his first jack-o-lantern face.

Towards the end of our carving time, the little miss finished up her reading homework.  She is making leaps and bounds with her reading skills daily.  It's so neat to watch her make connections and learn new things.

Hope you had a great Halloween too.