Halloween 2012

We had a lot of fun for Halloween this year. I used to do crafts with the girls on afternoons after school, but since they are getting older most of our "free time" is eaten up with homework. Now we do our fun activities on Saturdays. We had a fun time painting these pumpkin boxes one Saturday.

 We also had a blast making these dipped pretzels. Paige suggested that we start making these every Halloween as a tradition instead of sugar cookies. I thought that was a wonderful idea since these are SO much easier. Plus, the girls said they like them better. They must be my daughters (I love sweet/salty combinations). As you can see from the picture, Hadley had a great time adding sprinkles to hers. You can almost see the chocolate ;)

 We also LOVE to have spooky food on Halloween. However, trying to make a spooky dinner on Halloween night is too time consuming so this year we had a few spooky dinners throughout the month. We had mummy dogs on Avery's birthday. Then, another night we had swamp soup (spinach, white bean, sausage) - it was SO good, and even Hadley ate all of hers. :) Then another night we had zombie mini pizzas. And finally, we had spiderweb pancakes on Halloween morning. The girls were so impressed with my mad pancake skills. (Thank you Auntie Thresa for the idea). :)

   This year we only carved one pumpkin. I saw the picture of it on Pinterest (of course) and we decided we would carve it for the school's jack-o-lantern contest. It turned out really cute. And we won second place at the carnival. Honestly though, I am not just saying this because it was our pumpkin, we should have taken first. We lost to a Barbie eating jack-o-lantern. Oh well! The girls were still thrilled we won! We received a gift certificate for the movie theaters for our prize.

For this year's costumes the girls wanted to be types of candy. We had a fun time looking online to find inspiration for their costumes. Paige chose Jelly Bellies. (And she received the most compliments for her costume. Even the junior high and high school girls were giving her compliments, which made her face light up).  Kennedy wanted to be a candy corn. Avery wanted to be cotton candy, although her costume fell apart so for her school party she was Minnie Mouse (a costume I made a few years ago). And Hadley was a "her-see kiss". She was adorable.

Like last year we went over and only trick-or-treated on Grandma and Grandpa Orme's street, but the girls had PLENTY of candy. We let them go through and keep one sandwich baggie full of candy and I put the rest away to give to my primary class as treats! :) It worked out beautifully. We love Halloween!