Halloween Festivities

Another Halloween season has come - and gone.  Halloween is usually my favorite holiday of the year, but this year I just wasn't able to get into the spirit of things.  I'm in a "Boo Humbug!" mood.

After Christmas, Halloween is the absolute best holiday.  Free candy?  Well, the only thing that beats that is free toys!  Hooray!

We got a nice big pumpkin and made it into a very happy fellow.  That was an adventure (as always), but all children involved left the table with the same number of fingers as they came with.  Whew.  Tiffany took all of the seeds and made some very good-smelling toasted pumpkin seeds.

Coral participated in the haunted village - a very elaborate haunted house set up in the Fort Hall replica at Ross Park.  She was very frightening and "loved making people scream."  That's my girl!

Jessalyn had a never-ending stream of parties to go to - she's very social.

The rest of the kids had a blast picking or making their costumes and left a truly horrifying mess in my office.  I'll be cleaning that up tomorrow (I must wait for the vampire bats to settle so I don't have to sweep up the guano more than once).

I had an awesome costume all planned out and got it almost all the way built, but I just didn't have the time these last few weeks to finish it.  So that sucked.  But I'll finish it for next year.

The build-up to Halloween was unbelievable this year.  The kids were bouncing off the walls days before the actual sugar-fest.  It was utter madness!  I loved watching that, but it was hard to keep to a routine with all of the kids vibrating right out of their beds at night. 

A scary batch of little monsters!  Wizard, Indian, Transformer (human-stealth-form), Zombie-witch, Princess, and a very little Dragon.

Chief Joel with his pals, Indiana Jones and Dracula.  (Check out that tiny old man in the background!)

At the ward Halloween party.  Jessalyn was one of the three witches from Macbeth with two of her girlfriends - they memorized part of Act 4, Scene 1 at my insistence:

Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

       Fillet of a fenny snake,
    In the cauldron boil and bake;
    Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
    Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
    Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
    Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing...

That's awesome!  So creepy and fun.  ...  I love this holiday!  Maybe next year I won't be in a zombie-scrooge mood.  That would be nice.  In a wonderful and spooky sort of way!