Snow Day

Last week was our first big snow storm of the year. Evan was so excited to go outside and play in the snow. He lasted a good 20 minutes or so.

Owen enjoyed watching Evan play in the snow ...

and playing with the snow that Evan brought in the house.

Cheese!

Owen really performs for the camera these days.

Halloween

I'm finally posting Halloween pictures. The kids turned out pretty darn cute this year.

Owen was a little devil (nothing other than his usual self). The horns, cape, bag, tail, and pitchfork on his chest are old--I wore them twenty-some years ago!

Evan was a mummy. For the longest time he wanted to be a witch. One day I said, "Don't you want to be something else? Like, I don't know, a mummy or something?" (That was the first thing that popped into my head.) So a mummy he was. This costume was not old. Brand new sheets, half price at Target, ripped into strips. (Good job wrapping him, honey!) Economical, fairly easy, and so dang cute. I wanted to eat him ... and the little devil, too!

And then there's T'Em. By far the noisiest and smelliest fright that night.

How is it that kids know what candy is and how delicious it is before they've even tasted any?

Our mummy was a little more ragged by the time we came back from trick-or-treating.

Pre-Halloween Festivities. Pt. 2, Carving Pumpkins

We started Thursday evening with a yummy dinner of White Chicken Chili, salad, and raspberry lemonade. Delish!

Owen likes craisins.

Oh, and T'Em taught Evan what a whoopie cushion is. You'll see why.

Evan wanted his pumpkin to be just like the one in his very favorite scary Halloween book that glows in the dark, "A very scary jack o' lantern."

The artist begins his masterpiece.

T'Em's 25+ pound pumpkin was VERY hard and thick.

Auntie Kake begins carving her cute little Jack.

Everyone hard at work.

Evan's finished masterpiece.

Casey's finished masterpiece, Dwight K. Schrute. (If you don't know who that is, I feel very sorry for you.)

Attacking T'Em's mega-pumpkin with a jig saw.

Owen's jack-o-lantern. He's a devil, just like Owen. (I mean, what Owen will be for Halloween.)

T'Em cutting through her mega-pumpkin with a drywall knife. (By the way, a GREAT pumpkin carving tool if you have one handy!)

The Childs family jack-0-lanterns.

Evan is super excited about Halloween. All the time.

Evan with T'Em's little jack-0-lantern.

T'Em's and Auntie Kake's jack-o-lanterns.

The carvers.

All the jack-o-lanterns.

The aftermath!
(It actually wasn't that bad because of the dollar store tablecloth. We just gathered it all up and threw it away. I'll have to remember that for years to come.)

Evan's Preschool Halloween Parade

Evan had his preschool Halloween party on Thursday. His "real" Halloween costume is a mummy, but I was not about to wrap him up for 2 hours of preschool, then do it again the next night. So for preschool, he was a black cat.

He was so cute, marching along the sidewalk, swinging his arms back and forth as he went.

A wave for his audience.

His preschool class.

Pre-Halloween Festivities. Pt. 1, Hee-Haw Farms & a Wig

We had a busy week this past week, doing lots of fun stuff to celebrate the Halloween season. There was the party at Aunt Lynnette's, of course, and on Wednesday, we packed up the family (all 3 of my sisters included) and headed to Hee Haw Farms. We didn't do the corn maze or anything, but we enjoyed all the activities, including a hay ride, hay bale slide, farm animals, corn cob cannons, and the pitch-black inflatable boo house.

Evan liked the farm animal train ride.

So did Owen ... at first. T'Em was kind enough to escort him.

This is Owen at the end of the ride.

This is Leroy, the ginormous pig.

Evan's favorite part was the building full of "working Halloween stuff" (as he called it). They had a bunch of different scenes set up with a light-up mummy, singing witch, etc. You know, working stuff. Here he is, completely enthralled.

When we got home, we played around with Auntie Kake's I Love Lucy wig. I don't know if I should be totally frightened here or what, but Evan sure does make a cute little girl.

Now THIS is frightening.

And more of that cute little girl.