Not Just Halloween

This year we changed things up a bit.  The kids love getting new costumes and later playing dress up with them, but we're not really about trick or treating.  Usually we go to some sort of harvest festival.  Admittedly, this year a good harvest festival was hard to find, but we did find an event to attend.  The kids dressed up and we headed out--rain and all.  They were determined to have some fun in costume and I wasn't about to let a bit of rain (really, it wasn't much) dampen the fun.  At the festival, we listened to live bands. watched a couple of wrestlers in the ring (now that was really new and interesting for the kids as well as completely unexpected), visited vendors and collected candy along the way.  By the time we were done, we were pretty wet, but the children had enjoyed themselves and we had created a few fun memories.  :-)  

Billy Coleman from Where the Red Fern Grows--Hudson was a good sport to be part of the costume and Riley was pretty happy that two different men knew who he was dressed as :-)

Camp Pals

Dinah the Diner Girl

Our Bee

The Candy Magnet

Visibly wet at the end but in great spirits

Dinner Halloween night was a wing meal from our local favorite haunt (great play on words, huh?) :-) We had a friend of the boys' join us and we watched classic throw back movies--think Boris Karloff and Frankenstein.  The children were very interested in the old films and we had a lot of conversation about how films used to be made verses now.  

The days leading up to Halloween we took the time to study the origins of current Halloween customs, as well as the history behind Dia de los Muertos, which somehow became a topic of interest this year.  However, the study would not have been complete without studying the history of the Reformation--the light side of the dark holiday that Halloween is.  The children learned a lot of valuable history this year and we look forward to expanding our studies next year.  

We did get and carve pumpkins this year--Hannah carved a cross, Sonja carved a sunflower, Riley carved a maple leaf, and Connor carved a tetrimino design.  Though the carving was fun, we didn't get photos this year, but we did gather the seeds and make pumpkin seed snacks as well as Connor made pumpkin candies from the pumpkin meat--SO good!  The rest of our pumpkins--the heirlooms--we'll carve for harvesting seeds that we can save and plant later as well as harvest the meat so that we can make pumpkin puree to enjoy throughout the year.  Harvest season--such a great abundance of goodness!  :-)