Carving Pumpkins

It was a beautiful day this year, so we decided to carve our pumpkins on the front porch.  The girls designed both of their faces, and Lily even drew hers on the pumpkin.  The faces are true to their designs :)  Of course, grabbing the pumpkins guts also proved to be fun!

What the.....

Who are these crazy kids?!?!  Hopefully this picture was taken at Halloween!

Halloween Hijinx

Happy Halloween!

Lily enjoys not only designing our Jack-o-lantern each year, she likes to name it as well. This year, we'd like you to meet Zella.


Gran got to make it up for the festivities!


The architect and contractor showing off Zella.


We took Zella out front to put her in the porch decorations.



While we were working on the porch, we heard a noise coming from inside the house...


Caroline was getting excited about this whole trick or treat thing!


Big sister found an even bigger bucket that she wanted to take trick or treating. After we explained that all the candy would be Caroline's since it had her name on it, Lily went back to the pink jack-o-lantern bucket! In the process, however, candy did get left in this Caroline bucket, which is where Thatcher found the Tootsie pops that he enjoyed eating. My best guess is that he got through 3 before I figured out what he was up to.


Our annual trick or treating crew was looking good on Halloween!


A daylight view of the fall display on our front porch....tip for buying mums, get the ones that have lots of buds but haven't bloomed yet....and water them (go figure).


Our very pumpkiny front porch was quite popular with trick or treaters again this year. In fact, one nice family stopped to take a picture on our front porch because it was their little one's first trick or treat ever!


Glow on Zella, glow on.

Trunk or Treat at Grandview

Grandview had their trunk-or-treat tonight, so we braved the cold to take part in the festivities. Lily decided to be Cinderella this year, and we helped Caroline decide to be one of Cinderella's mice....Suzie. I pretty much think Emily has gone too far this time with the level of cuteness that is going on...these two were just adorable running around the parking lot!




The designer - with her adorable daughter wearing the home-made costume.


While Lily tried out the moon-bounce, Caroline discovered that she had two hands, one for her candy bucket and one for Lily's!

Storybook Character Day at School

Today was Storybook Character Day at school (which as we've come to find out is the less ghoulish way to celebrate Halloween for preschoolers). Lily is dressing as Cinderella for Halloween this year, and Caroline is going to be one of her little mice. The parents were invited to come in and read the story that generated their child's costume choice. So here is a piece of the Reflection for today that has Lily dressed as Cinderella in the top picture, and me reading Cinderella to her class in the bottom picture.

Week 15

I can't believe Halloween has come and gone. As we were returning home tonight, I saw someone had already put up their Christmas lights....why is everyone always in such a rush!


We started off the weekend carving our Jack-o-lantern "Sarah" as it was named by Lily. Lily chose the design and helped clean out 'the guts'. Caroline supervised.



This year Lily was able to tell us what she wanted to be for Halloween...and it was a no-brainer for her...DORA!!

The grandparents will tell you it is Lily's favorite. So, there was a bit of pride swallowing for me because I had made all of Lily's costumes up to this year, and was hoping that would be 'my thing'...but after the melt-down we had last year it was more important to us(me) for her to have fun then for me to achieve my own agenda...so Dora it was.

Dora would not be complete without her sidekick...so luckily for her we planned it just right to have baby Caroline aka "Boots the monkey" by her side. Admittedly, not the costume I would have chosen for my sweet baby girl's first Halloween, but again, I'm working hard to put my own preferences aside...and to be honest it was pretty cute and Caroline was a champ. Really, I should know by now not to expect anything else from her, she remains one of the most evenly tempered babies. She is such a dream.



My concern was, as usual, with Big Sister. She informed me the night before trick-or treating that she in fact was not going to wear her Dora costume......say what?!?! Luckily she's old enough to understand no Dora, no candy. And when time came, thanks to some helpful persuasion from Gran as well, Lily easily got dressed for the night. And then it happened....like a switch was thrown, Lily was Lily no more, but Dora incarnate. She truly transformed and with such life and enthusiasm, it was a joy to watch...kind of like Christmas when you enjoy watching them enjoy their presents way more than receiving them yourself.


Gran helped Dora make a map for the evening...Step 1: Down the street, Step 2: Up the sidewalk, Step 3: Knock on the door! And that's how you get Halloween candy :) Lily made sure this map was in hand for the evening's adventure and she used it too. It was SO cute!


"Mr. Luke" (as Dave calls him) and my friend Elizabeth came over again this year. Luke readily informed us that his name was not Luke, but "Spiderman"...got it!

Happy Halloween!

With Emily being on night float the last two weeks, Lily and I were so glad to have her back today to celebrate Halloween! Earlier this week, Lily got to open her Halloween card from Gran.





















Of course, there was pumpkin carving that needed to be done. Our "theme" this year was M&M's...so Lily dressed up as the sassy, femme-fatal Green. Emily should get massive props for this, as she made the costume this week, in between 14 hours night shifts! We also carved our pumpkins to be Red and Yellow.

Now, the Green M&M outfit was not so popular at first, but the issue proved to be no match for sugar!

Emily's colleague Elizabeth came over with her son Luke to go trick-or-treating in Wiltshire. Luke was dressed up as Thomas the Train. Apparently, we have quite a popular 'hood for trick-or-treating as the road in front of our house was parked up for most of the evening.

Evening though the rain was steady for most of the night, it could not dampen the spirits of us east Tennessee folk....the festival must go on!