Halloween Twenty Thirteen!

Another Halloween is in the books.  They seem to be flying at me faster and faster, along with most other things.  Can it be November 3rd already?  

This year we planted Cora's and Dax's preschool pumpkin seeds in Grandma Zaugg's garden.  We tried to plant them in our sad little garden squares in prior years, but our backyard just doesn't get enough sun to grow good pumpkins.  We ended up with TONS of pumpkins this year though, but still decided we needed to hit the pumpkin patch for just one or two really big ones to carve.  Can't skip the pumpkin patch visit completely, can you?

Grandma's garden is pretty impressive, but still doesn't have a hay maze.  The kids chased each other around this thing for a good long time, and we had to beg them to come out.

The annual Zaugg Family Halloween party gives Preston the opportunity (and excuse) to play with dry ice.

This year, Cora wanted to be a raccoon.  Here she is, working her raccoon supermodel pose for all its worth.  I could just eat her face:

Here is Cora and friends singing us some Halloween songs at her preschool presentation.  This is my very very last preschool Halloween shindig.  *sniff*  *sniff*  

Cora had a great time at her preschool Halloween party!  They got to decorate cookies, and she brought her baby raccoon to help.  Cora's favorite thing about cookies is the frosting.  When we make cookies I have to put some frosting in a separate bowl for her because her idea of frosting a cookies is getting some frosting on your knife, and then skipping the cookie part and just putting the knife directly in your mouth, as shown below:

 I signed up to help with Dax's kindergarten Halloween party too.  I felt bad that the kids didn't get to wear their costumes to school, so I found some masks they could make.  There was a witch, a Frankenstein monster, a pumpkin head and a werewolf.  Dax chose the werewolf:

I signed up to help with Arden's party too.  They had lots of fun crafts and theirs.  Here is Arden, decorating a skeleton cookie:

After the school parties were over, I quickly got the kids into their costumes so we could start on the main reason for the holiday...candycandycandycandy!  Cora had worn her raccoon costume to the Zaugg family party, a friend's birthday party, a different friend's Halloween party and her preschool party, so she decided she wanted to wear her old witch costume for a while to change it up.  Fine with me, she is still adorable!

Arden wanted to be an angel.  This angel gave me a hard time smiling for pictures, but I caught at least one with a grin.  Don't let that halo fool you folks!

Dax, along with every other kid it seemed, was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.  I made him pull up his mask to smile, but it was a little bright outside and he kept blinking:

Takes after me.  We quickly headed up to Grandma Wilson's to trick or treat.  I realized I hadn't gotten a picture of the kids all together yet, so here they are:

 We got a donut from Grandma Wilson, and then we quickly drove up to show Grandpa Haun the costumes.  More candy!  After that we quickly had dinner, added some more layers to the kids, and Preston took them around the neighborhood for trick or treat.  We didn't do a neighborhood Trunk or Treat this year, so we got quite a few more kids coming to our house than usual.  I had to steal some of Cora's candy to give to the last trick or treaters of the night (don't tell!).

We only carved three pumpkins this year because we are slackers.  Actually, Arden got so engrossed in watching Tim Burton's Corpse Bride the night we carved them that she couldn't be pulled away, and Preston couldn't decide what to put on his and the days flew by and we never carved it.  Here are the ones we did get done.  Dax wanted a spider, I wanted an owl, and Cora wanted a kitty cat.  Voila:

 The weather cooperated and we had a great Halloween 2013!