halloween 2010

Halloween this year began last Saturday when we purchased a pumpkin from a local fruit stand and brought it home. It started to get spooky last Monday when we carved it into a jack o'lantern.


And it started to get weird when Caleb grabbed chunks of raw pumpkin and started gobbling them up. To each his own, I suppose.


At school this week, Garrett went with his class on a field trip to an "urban pumpkin patch" (i.e. a local nursery), where everyone got to pick their own baby pumpkin. Word from his teacher is that the Halloween decor kind of spooked him, but he pulled through, and by the end of the week he was rolling with the punches. Which, considering all the fun they had Friday, probably wasn't too hard. On that day he got to wear his Charlie Brown costume to school and show it off on a parade around the block. The school also orchestrated a trick-or-treating event for all of the children, and Garrett came home with bag full of goodies. "It's amazing!" Garrett told me, his eyes wide, as we inspected the loot together that afternoon.

Last night was the ward Halloween party. Our ward has struggled in year's past successfully pulling off this annual activity, so my expectations going in were somewhat low. But I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun we -- and Garrett especially -- all had. We all dressed up: Garrett went as Charlie Brown, and Caleb went as Linus; I wore my stand-by poodle skirt, and Blake donned business casual pants and a brown sweater and went as a "rational consumer." For most of the evening Caleb played up his character, dragging his blue blanket around and sucking his fingers, while Garrett pranced around on a sugar high. He participated in almost every activity: the fish pond, donuts-on-a-string, the haunted house, and the cupcake walk, which was his favorite. He even got his face painted by our ward's own professional clown.


Because Halloween fell on a Sunday this year, we did not take the boys out trick-or-treating. But even though Garrett is starting to grasp all of the traditions of the holiday, he honestly didn't know what he was missing out on today, so he's no worse for the wear. Instead we watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (several times -- it's a new favorite) while we baked and pureed the sugar pumpkin Grandma helped him pick out at the apple orchard in New Jersey. I think we'll close the month in a similar vein to how we started it and make some more pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

Happy Halloween!