Halloween Traditions

Halloween is definitely not my favorite holiday, but I do love pumpkin patches and I also know that kids tend to like Halloween. To make it more enjoyable for me, I've tried to create/adopt some traditions.

1. The first, of course, is to visit many, many pumpkin patches. We didn't get to as many this year as last but we still had lots of fun.

2. We went to a few Fall Festivals and Carnivals. Some were completely free and included food, games, and rides. Others used tickets but we still had a good time since all included prizes and lollipops!

3. We watched "The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" as a family. To be truthful, the kids watched it almost everyday...and if it wasn't that one then it was the Thanksgiving one.

4. We purchased something at each pumpkin patch we went. Sometimes it was just gourds, like these, which we shared with our preschool classes. Sometimes it was small pumpkins to decorate with stickers. Other times it was large ones.

5. Costumes are not my strong suit. Sophie's first Halloween yielded 2 costumes, one for preschool and one for actual trick-or-treating, plus 3 additional outfits after the costumes came off. Last year also had 2 different costumes but just one additional outfit for Boo at the Zoo. This year we had just the one costumes and an extra Halloween shirt or 2. I do think I like having a theme or at least a plan for the costumes. So as much as I don't like dressing up myself, I'll try to always put thought into the kids costumes.

6. We made it to the petting zoo again this year (we didn't make it last year, too much going on trying to prepare foe China). The kids had so much fun and I definitely want to do this every year.

7. This year I tried my hand at making homemade pumpkin pie with some of the pumpkins we got at the pumpkin patches. They were pretty easy to do and tasted great.

Happy Halloween!

We took the kids to the Trunk or Treat Carnival at church the night before Halloween (stopping by Grandma's to show off our superhero costumes).

I had bought the capes, masks and wristbands during the summer for dress-up, then decided to just use them for Halloween. Sophie's too young to really care what she dressed as and Logan has never done Halloween so I figured I had this year to do what I want. I asked my mom to create shirts to match the capes, then just added bottoms.

Super Logan!

These are some friends of ours. Their grandmother was really creative.

All the kids wanted was lollipops, so when given the chance they would search the bowls looking for them.

The kids had trick-or-treating at preschool on Monday. Since we had done the trunk or treat and Paul had to work late, we just stayed in on Halloween night and passed out candy. The kids enjoyed seeing all the costumed kids that came to the door. Well, Sophie didn't like the Scream mask that had blood flowing down it. She talked about that for days.

Lollipops

My kids love lollipops. I blame Pastor Mike! He used to be in the lobby area at the end of the preschool day with ring pops and dum dum lollipops. Even though he isn't at the church anymore and the kids haven't had an after-preschool lollipop on 6 months, they still ask sometimes.

The kids have had ample opportunity to get their candy fix this month. We've been to a few Halloween carnivals plus we went to a parade, and all of these included lots of candy. The one thing both kids ask for once we get home is a lollipop.

We went to a local church last night for their Party in the Patch (unfortunately, I only got one picture). The kids had fun and loved that they got candy as a prize at each of the games. Of course their favorite is the lollipop pull, they get a prize and a lollipop!

Here's Logan doing the Hoop Toss.

I actually don't mind that the kids want a lollipop. As far as candy goes, I think they are the easiest. They don't melt or get squished in my bag. They are contained, no individual pieces to go flying everywhere when Sophie tries to open the wrapper. I can tell pretty quickly if they are done by that "empty" white stick. They are sticky, but that's not nearly as messy as melted chocolate.

I imagine the kids fantasy trick-or-treat stash would be all lollipops...dum dums, tootsie pops, blow pops. They are going to be so disappointed Halloween night!

Green Meadows Petting Farm

I took the kids to a petting farm this week. They had a great time. It was the coldest day so far of the season and threatening rain so they didn't have the huge group of field trip kids and the owner showed us around first, then let us go where we want. They had several brand new babies...like these week old goats.



Sophie has no fear so she would go right up to the animals to pet them and love on them. She was so cute when she gave the babies a kiss.

They had cans of feed out and both kids loved feeding the llamas and goats. I wouldn't be surprised if the goats had a tummy ache after all the food they got. Logan didn't quite understand that we couldn't give them all the food in the 50 gallon can.

In addition to goats and llamas, we also so a huge hog, baby Vietnamese potbelly piglets, pregnant cows that we milked, and baby chicks. The kids tried to feed the chickens (but they didn't like that much), we only spent a second in the turkey pen (I didn't like them much), and cheered on some pigs in the pig races. It was a great day!

Pumpkin Patch #4

We ended up making 2 trips to this patch. The first day, Logan decided as soon as we got to the first group of pumpkins that his tummy hurt and he needed to go home. I got 2 pictures before we left.

Cheesing it up even with a tummy ache.

We went back the next day and they had a blast. They just ran and ran and ran.

The church had created this prayer labyrinth with rocks and pumpkins and Logan had a blast working his way through the maze. Sophie just wanted to stand on the big pumpkins.

Homemade Crayons

I decided to let the kids create new crayons with old, broken ones. They got a little frustrated trying to get the paper off of them but they both loved breaking them into little pieces.


We used a mini muffin tin to make round crayons. Logan was meticulous about filling the sections.


Sophie watching the crayons melt in the oven.

All done!

I was a little worried that the crayons wouldn't come out of the tin, but most came out easily and the rest were no problem after I put it in the freezer for a bit. The kids loved using their new crayons to color.

Family Fun Day

We went to one of the pumpkin patches when the cousins came to town. They were having a family day with hay rides, games, free food, puppet shows and a concert. The kids had a great time and so did the adults.