Halloween 2011

I don’t know why I’m always surprised that after Halloween it is suddenly November, but I am.  It doesn’t feel like November here – maybe because it was 85 degrees today. 

Here are some pictures of the Halloween fun at the Mott house:

Carving the pumpkin:

Oliver is always brave about getting out the guts:             

Henry was not brave at all.  He was making the funniest faces.  I made him reach in and touch just one seed, and he started gagging and almost threw up, he was so disgusted. 

The five oldest (Cynthia was already in bed) with their jack-o-lantern:

An elephant, bee, football player, witch, Tinkerbell, and rival football player ready to go trick-or-treating:

Pretty much the same group as above, except now the bee is laughing and the witch is creepier:

We put Cynthia in the stroller and let her walk around with us for a few houses – she thought it was very exciting to be out and about with so many fun people.  Then I took her home to put her to bed (and to answer our own door) while Daniel took the rest of the kids around the neighborhood.

Henry the elephant was so funny to watch.  This is the first year that he’s really understood the concept of trick-or-treating, and he was pretty excited.  After every house he would run back, amazed that they gave him candy, yelling, “Now do we get to go to ANOTHER HOUSE?!!” 

He did get a little bit nervous, though, especially at the houses with creepy Halloween decorations.  One of the first houses we went to had a big scary witch thing out front, and Henry was trying so hard to be brave.  I noticed him hesitating, and then he grabbed hold of the tusks on his costume (holding them like weapons) and crept up the sidewalk.

Rachel helped him make it past the witch on his way back – he was so relieved to get out of that yard.

I captured his approach to the witch house on video, and combined it with a clip of him a few houses later, when he was feeling a little bit braver (there had been a few pep talks about how none of the scary stuff was real):

Rachel with lots of candy after going around the cul-de-sac across from our house.  And I think that’s an elephant in the background running away from something scary (so much for his bravery).

I took Cynthia back home at that point, and she went to bed.  But first we took this scary Halloween picture – I love how Cindy is making such a good “creepy little bumblebee” face.

After Daniel and the older kids came home, we got everyone bathed and in jammies, and then we turned off all the lights and everyone gathered around a little candle for a scary ghost story from Daniel.  By the end of the story I had 3 kids sitting in my lap.  Daniel’s a good storyteller.

Then last night we did our big candy draft.  We dumped out everyone’s buckets, sorted all the candy into different piles, and then the kids took turns picking candy until they each had 15 pieces.  It was very exciting.  

We’re always trying to teach the kids about delayed gratification, so this year we’re trying something fun with the Halloween candy;  they can eat their 15 pieces whenever they want, but anyone who still has some left by a week from today will get 3 more pieces, and anyone who has managed to save 5 pieces will get 6 more. 

It’s been funny to see their different strategies for saving.  We’ll see how it goes.