Halloween Has Come Again!

Their Best Disguises Yet! 

Since its hard to tell who is who because of their excellent costumes, Ashlyn is Jessie from the infamous Toy Story movies, Preston is a police officer (just decided as we were headed out the door) and Garrett is a tiger because he has no opinion and therefore we get to dress him up!  Halloween has become a week long event these last few years, which means so many opportunities to dress up that you can be something different every time.  For example, the picture above is at our church Halloween party, altough Preston was scheduled to go as Woody (the other infamous Toy Story character) so he could partner up with his sister "Jessie" he decided last minute he wanted to be a police man.  I think Preston chose a different costume every time he dressed up as you'll note in the pictures below!

 Ashlyn was pretty excited that we stepped it up this year and actually dyed her hair red to make her look like the real "Jessie".  This is a big deal for a little girl who didn't know you could so easily change hair color, so I'm sure this is only the first color her hair will ever be:)  Garrett make one cute little tiger, even cuter when he actually wears the hood of his costume with the tiger head on it!  Garrett wasn't having that and pulled it off every time!  Preston's costume is simply stuff from the kids dress up box, we pieced it together last minute when I remembered a pair of plastic handcuffs we had stashed away in the Halloween box!  That made his day, and turned him into an official police officer, he loved getting to wear all the gear!

Once we start the holiday with the party at church, we have our annual playgroup Halloween party at our house!  Somehow it became a tradition to always have the Halloween party at our house, which is fine since everyone takes a turn hosting playgroup, at least I always know when my turn will be!  The party is always a big hit, meaning lots of kids in all kinds of costumes.  I lost count, but I think there was around 30 kids and adults this year, one of our smaller groups in attendance!  It doesn't take many bodies to make our house crazy full of people!  Thank goodness we can spread out into the basement, then it doesn't seem like as many!    Ashlyn missed our party since she was at school; however, Preston opted to be Buzz Lightyear for this event and I'm not sure Garrett even dressed up?  I was trying to find pictures to show how wild and crazy our party was and realized I don't even have any with my kids in them!  We played pin the nose on the pumpkin, a new concept for these 3 and 4 year olds who've never even heard of pin the tail on the donkey!  Then we did a craft downstairs with white paint that you rolled marbles around in to make a cool spider web on the paper! Kids thought it was cool, but by the time they dried half of them forgot to take them home!

This was an exciting year for pumpkin carving since Ashlyn and Preston are getting old enough to actually help do some of the work.  I don't think we even bothered carving pumpkins the first two years they were born, so this is a special bonus for Garrett to get to carve so young!  Who says there is no benefits to being the third born:)  Surprisingly, Preston was the one who refused to grab the gooey gunk out of the pumpkin considering in every other situation he is looking for a mess to make!  Ashlyn was very brave and got her hands all gooey cleaning out her very own pumpkin, at her age everything is very personal and "her" pumpkin is only hers! 

We tried to get creative with our pumpkin faces, but its easier said then done when it comes to cutting those pumpkins out.  Ashlyn decided she wanted a tongue on hers, wow, that became quite difficult to do.  Luckily Daddy came to the rescue and figured out how to cut out a tongue!  Each pumpkin was named, too bad I can't remember them, the consequence of waiting so long to blog:)  But the excitement really began when we turned out the lights and lit those babies up, they were all in awe!

 I love how proud Garrett is of his little pumpkin!  He saw his brother and sister posing with their pumpkins, and he rarely lets anything they do slide by without mimicking their behavior!

 Now it is actually Halloween, the official 31st of October, and we've invited some friends over to trick or treat with us!  Note the Garrett is now dressed as a ferocious, fire breathing dragon ( I couldn't resist), Preston is sticking with his Buzz Lightyear dress-up (he's changed costumes every time he dressed up this week), Ashlyn stayed focused on being Jessie every time, and we sprayed her hair red every time also.  By the time Halloween was over, she kept a faint red tint to her hair.  People even complimented her on the red "highlights"!  

It's become a tradition to have Ashlyn's friend Anna and her family join us trick or treating this year; however, Preston's friend Issac and his family also came along.  We've found it beneficial to trick or treat in a group of the same ages because they move at about the same pace and are equally interested in helping each other get more and more candy!  Pictured left to right is: Garrett, Preston, Elise Johnston (the puppy), her brother Issac (the member of the marching band), Ashlyn, her friend Anna (Gargamell's black cat) and her little sister Adiline (Smurfette)  Not pictured is Micah the smurf and Matt as Gargamell!  They are always way cooler parents then us on Halloween and get all dressed up in coordinating costumes, while my kids are just lucky we can buy costumes at the store because I can't make them anything!

Starting out on our trick or treating trek.  It took us all night to get our group of 1-5 year olds around the block, but they enjoyed every minute of it!