The Adventures of Hayden, Eliza & Molly: Playing Catch Up

This is embarrassingly belated, seeing as how we have our Christmas tree up and decorated, and there's actually snow on the ground outside, but this post will be about Halloween. Photo uploading and blogging got lost in the busy transition into our own house, so I'm only just getting around to it. While I could skip a Halloween blog all together to try and save face, I just love pictures of pumpkins and costumes too much to let it slide. So here's a quick narrative through 20 pictures of the way we celebrated Halloween this year.

#1. We went to a second pumpkin patch, one where you could pick your own. Hayden was excited and wanted to walk the length of the patch.

#2. Eliza amongst the little pumpkins in the patch. We were kind of late in the pumpkin picking season so most of the pumpkins were pretty small. And I think there were some pumpkins that had been "planted" (if you will) in the patch for latecomers.

#3. Hayden very carefully selected her perfect pumpkin.

#4. Eliza amongst the BIG pumpkins. These were not in the patch, but on display. And such a perfect photo op. I think Eliza was checking to see if the one next to her was bigger, or maybe she was trying to figure out an escape route.

#5. While you may think I annoy my children by various "photo ops," in this case, I think Eliza liked posing on a giant pumpkin. Once we took her down, she wanted to climb right back up. No mountain (or pumpkin) is too big for our little mountain goat!

#6. And after failing to climb Mt. Pumpkin, Eliza discovered that it made a good drum.

#7. Then she explored the mums with poppop. She's a busy one.

#8. Hayden poses with Daddy. Yes we had to bribe her to smile for the picture. (what was the bribe you ask? playing a game on Daddy's new iphone.)

#9. The carved pumpkin! H selected the shapes for eyes and nose. And she insisted on it having a sad mouth. I don't know why.

#10. As part of our Halloween-related activities, we made cookies! Grandma was nice enough to mix up some yummy cream cheese cookie dough, and Hayden and I did the rolling, cutting and decorating. (and much of the eating as well!)

#11. Don't they look great?! Which one would YOU pick?

Then there was the trick-or-treating (hereby known as ToTing). We ended up in an situation where Hayden wasn't going to get to go "real" ToTing, because we were headed to State College to move out of our house on Halloween weekend. Durham doesn't move ToTing but we weren't going to be in town. State College moves ToTing when it's on a weekend(don't want to mix little kids in costumes and drunk football-crazy undergrads!) but we weren't going to be in State College in time for the designated night. So we improvised. Grandma was kind enough to recruit 4 neighbors to "practice" their ToT routine. We dressed the kids in costumes and headed out. Hayden was a clown, Eliza was a giraffe.

#12. At first Hayden was an angry clown. This is her "don't take my picture Mommy!" face. She was going through a phase.

#13. One of the great things about doing ToTing on an offnight- everyone gets to go out, because no one has to stay home and give out candy! I think we might have confused a couple people who were out walking that evening.

#14. Can you tell that Hayden is still in "no photos" mode? It's hard to shoot eye daggers at mom while sucking your thumb for comfort and wearing an adorable clown costume!

#15. Caught in the act of ToTing.

#16. Finally! A happy clown! (Yes we bribed her. With her Halloween candy.)

#17. More happy clown - this time with a giraffe as a pet!

#18. Isn't the giraffe the cutest?!!! (Eliza was a trooper. The costume was fleece-ish and it was over 80 degrees. But she didn't seem to mind.)

#19. At the end of ToTing, I ran home to dress up silly so they could ToT at our house. This caused Hayden to get upset ("wait for me Mommy!") and turn back into "no pictures" mode. So it was just me and the giraffe for a family halloween photo by the pumpkin.