Halloween '14

October is such a fast-paced month! I can't believe it's already over! Here's some of our Halloween festivities.

I love to rake leaves! It's just part of the Halloween/autumn routine!

 Bright sunny day at the pumpkin patch. I didn't know when we'd fit it in, but we went before dance one day and it was a lovely day!

Ward Halloween party. Austin and some of his super hero buddies. Erik didn't dress up 'til later and that was after convincing him that he wouldn't get candy unless he did. Luckily, he didn't get much candy anyhow. Once he got his first lolly pop, he was good to sit and suck on it for a while.

Victoria invited two friends from school. Janelle (Hermione) and Bethany (our neighbor). Victoria was Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter. She was going to be Hermione too, but true to her costume choices of the past few years, she had to be something creepy.

Then, of course, there were many Elsas. Can you find Karissa? She is the second oldest in the group (actually, I don't know how old the tallest girl is, since she's a friend, but the girl who brought her just turned 7), but is standing among the youngest and isn't much taller than they, except little Abby, who was the only Anna in the group. Karissa really wanted to be Elsa, even though I told her there would be many of them, but she didn't care. I found her the costume for a pretty good deal at Target, then crocheted the cute braid hat.

She didn't like the hat at first, but her bff from church, Emma, had the same one, then she liked it!

Carving pumpkins was a hit, as usual, though Erik had no interest in getting his hands dirty for that.

We went for a hike the day before Halloween. The weather was nice that day.

 As for Halloween, the weather was awful, as usual. It has rained the past two years during trick-or-treat time. This year, is rained all day, then was misty and very cold for trick-or-treat. I convinced Victoria to wear a Santa hat, thinking she'd just be a caroler, but she wanted to still be Bellatrix and wore the cape over my black coat. Lucky for Karissa and Austin, a lot of their costume was on their head, so their coats being on didn't matter too much. Erik finally wanted to wear his costume, but wouldn't wear his coat (tough he did wear a hat), so he was pretty cold and miserable. After about 30 minutes I took him home. He wasn't letting anyone put candy in his bucket anyhow, after the first few houses. The others returned just 15 minutes later.

Karissa and Victoria then got to go to Bethany's church party at the corner of our neighborhood. They ate hot dogs, popcorn, jumped on the bouncy house, and Karissa won the costume contest for her age group! I am convinced it was not the Elsa dress that I'm sure a few other girls had worn. She said she got a lot of compliments on her hat. She won this web kins puppy and has been carrying it around ever since!