Halloween 2022

Some of the children opted for a giant Costco pumpkin and some chose to pick theirs out after Mass at the "Pumpkin Patch."  Isaac helped the younger boys with their pumpkin carving if they needed help.  They all picked out their own design and drew it on the pumpkin.

Hannah has never liked pumpkin guts so she usually paints hers.  Judah wanted me to paint Roman's like Jack Jack from The Incredibles, so I did a very fast job of it the day of Halloween.

We had a really lovely time walking the neighborhood together, though Genna did have a party with friends to go to so she wasn't there.  Afterwards they came back with an insane haul of candy.  Bob actually started skipping houses at the end and walking with us because he said he just had too much.  Our neighborhood even had margaritas and chocolate fondues. 

Here's Bob after some kids dumped their candy and went back out for more.

All Saint's Day and Halloween

We celebrated All Saint's Day early this year due to a scheduling conflict.  It was a lot of fun with games, cake walks, and prizes.  

Saint Cake Walk

 

The group of Saints

St. Padre Pio, St. Michael the Archangel, and Blessed Carlo Acutis 

The week before Halloween my sister had a baby, and so we had my niece and nephew over for trick-or-treating.  It was a really enjoyable evening.  Roman just let us walk around feeding him which we normally don't do because he is so hard to feed.  A bunch of neighbors had food or drinks out for socializing.  One even had a bouncy house.

Our Trick or Treating Crew

Judah was Jack from the Magic Tree House book series.  Bob was some kind of Ninja.  Savanna was Elsa.  Then the Harry Potter duo, of course.

The Flash changed his mind when a neighbor gave us a costume that didn't fit their son and became some kind of ninja.

Drew recently introduced Dylan to the world of HP and so they were both different characters from the book. 

A cowgirl wearing her Aunt Kristen's sparkly cowboy boots

Genna's friend came over and they dressed as cowgirls and walked around the neighborhood on their own.

My niece

All Hallow's Eve 2020

We carved pumpkins the day before Halloween.  Hannah actually carved hers this year.  She did Iron man.

                     

Genevieve carved Loki and wrote, "In the end you will always kneel" on the back of it.

Isaac carved a howling wolf silhouette.

Drew and Judah carved faces.  Drew actually drew and carved his own this year for the first time.  Bob wanted to paint his like a bat that he saw in a kid's magazine.  He painted, cut and glued it all himself, but I helped draw the wings, ears, and eyes.

The girls were trying to figure out how to get candy without really dressing up.  I told them face paint and so that's what they ended up going with.

Hannah drew the web, and I drew on the spider.

Drew was King Arthur.  He made his own crown and I threw together his tunic.

Judah took Drew's costume of the last few years and dressed up like Luke Skywalker.

Bob, AKA The Flash, was running fast.

Genna drew this web on her own face.

The boys are back in town!

Let's get some candy and meet our new neighbors!

We first went around our new neighborhood.  There were so many people outside at tables in their yards, that it was fun to get to see people and meet a few.  Brian stopped to talk to one of the guys at one of the first houses and just kept talking so we left him and caught up with him later.  Just in our small section, the kids all had overflowing buckets.  We stopped by the house to dump candy out and then drove down the street to my sister's neighborhood.  We went trick-or-treating again with the cousins, but only to about 8 more houses.  The houses there are very far apart and take a while to walk up each driveway.

Once we made it over to my sister's he was able to borrow his cousin's Jack Sparrow hat.

Brian never dresses up, but he got this idea to be the cranberry guy from some video he saw online.  I don't know, but he was excited about it.  He had our resident budding cosmetologist, Genna, drew on a mustache for him.

 

All Hallow's Eve

This year we stayed home.  Brian took the kids out in the neighborhood, and I stayed to hand out candy.  I was not sure how Luna would do with so many knocks on the door and she was still a flight risk at that point.  She loves us more now and doesn't make a break for it every time the door opens.  Anyway, I put her in her crate and sat outside in the cold (Yes!  It was pretty chilly in Texas this year on this particular day.) on our bench and handed out candy for two hours.

This year we had Harry Potter (Isaac) and Luke Skywalker (Drew), like last year (no talking them out of doing the same thing) and then Black Panther (Judah) and Flash (Bob).  The girls didn't really dress up as anything, but they still went out and got candy.

Then came my favorite part of the evening ritual, the annual candy swap.  It's always so peaceful and joyful.  No one ever fights or argues.  It is an evening full of everything I want my children to be giving, sharing, and sacrificing.  It is not uncommon to hear someone giving someone else their favorite candy.

Pumpkin Carving

The Sunday before Halloween, we bought pumpkins outside of our church for each of the kids.  Isaac carved his own creepy eye.  

Judah took out the pulp and seeds for me, but requested I carve a Batman signal on his.  In the end, I drew it on and Isaac did the carving for it.

Drew was virtually no help, because "It is gross!"  He doesn't like to get his hands dirty, but he had no problem requesting the most difficult carving.  I saw some pictures on Facebook after I carved this that people somehow use a picture on a paper as a guide.  This girl's not that smart.  I hand drew it on the pumpkin.  Oh well!

Bob requested a PJ Mask Gecko pumpkin and I was so worn out by the time I got to his mini pumpkin that I used marker and my linoleum cutter to do a quick job of it, with no actual cutting and carving and dealing with seeds.

Genevieve carved and designed her emoji pumpkin all on her own.

Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Bench

You'll notice in the group picture of the pumpkins, Hannah's is missing.  It's because she never carved or decorated hers.  She had planned to use markers and decorate it, but she never got around to it.

Here's Hannah's pumpkin keeping Our Lady company by the front door.  I couldn't resist these pictures of Bobby!  He is such a joy!

And a charmer too!