Halloween 2011

I have a couple of things I've been meaning to post about for awhile now, but I'll start with our Halloween activities, since I'll bet those are the pictures people most want to see. We had a fun and eventful October leading up to Halloween night. We kicked things off with a pumpkin carving party, hosted by our friends C and E Parker. Sophie had picked out a pumpkin when we went apple picking, but Loren and I needed a potential jack o'lantern, so we stopped by the same pumpkin place we went to last year to get one.

A repeat pose of Sophie with the pumpkins, just like last year (if I was ambitious I would make the "year" a link to the actual photo... ha ha oh well)

Sophie was not interested in affiliating in any way with the pumpkin innards, so Loren took care of them for her. He carved a happy face for her jack o'lantern

Loren and I both cleaned out our pumpkin, then I did the outline and large-scale carving, while Loren refined it after I was done. We did three ghosts. I don't have any finished pictures because we put our pumpkins in the hallway by our door, but pretty soon they got moldy and yucky, so Loren made us throw them away. He was so concerned about spores that he wouldn't even let us take a picture with them :( He's kind of a germ-a-phobe like that

The week before Halloween Sophie's playgroup had a Halloween party, which was her first official opportunity to dress up in her costume. She decided that she wanted to be Rapunzel, based on the movie Tangled, and I was happy to comply, since that meant I wouldn't have to put in too much effort. I'm usually not very gung-ho about Halloween costumes since they're just for one night, but I was proud of my effort this year.

Scary Rapunzel!

Sweet Rapunzel

She didn't wear a wig, but I did put all of the flower clips we own in her hair, found her a lizard which Loren creatively tried to attach to her costume, and she carried a frying pan from her kitchen set. I think she looked amazing, but if you haven't seen the movie then you won't fully appreciate it.

The Friday night before Halloween I insisted that we go to Salem. I had heard that you had to visit in October and this was our last chance, so we rode the commuter rail up there and wandered around a little. It was fun and we got there early enough to avoid the adult Halloween celebrations, which get a little crazy. We had a plethora of witch-related museums and attractions to choose from. We ended up going to the Witch History Museum (I think that's what it's called...? All of the museum names are also very similar) It was kind of corny, but I expected that, so I still had a good time. They had a bunch of diorama scenes in the basement that we got to walk around in. Pretty spooky.

Tituba telling the girls about witchcraft

Sophie and I in front of one of the scenes - I think it's depicting the hanging tree, where the victims of the Salem witchcraft trials were, well, hung.

And of course we had to take a picture with the Samantha statue. Samantha, as in from the tv show Bewitched

The Saturday before Halloween were went to the annual Donigard Halloween party, which is co-hosted by two families in our ward. They go all out! The apartment where it was held was decorated very spookily and everyone must wear costumes. I knew the competition would be fierce (they give out trophies for the best costumes!) so that motivated me to actually put effort into our costumes. Since Sophie wanted to be Rapunzel, Loren and I also chose to be characters from the movie. He was Flynn Rider and I was the old, drunk, cupid guy. Again, you have to have seen the movie. We did not win a prize, but check out katewangsgard.blogspot.com to see the competition we were up against. You should definitely check it out, because there were some cool costumes. We had a great time at the party and they even had babysitting downstairs for the kids!

Flynn, cupid and Rapunzel

Loren giving his best Flynn Rider face

The awesome poster Loren made for his costume. He even changed his nose!

Friends who were the Mad Hatter, a bowling ball and a Sprite bottle

And then finally, on Halloween we managed to get out the door after a rough dinner with Sophie and went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. She had a great time and after every house kept asking, "Are we still trick-or-treating?" She ended up with quite the candy haul too, but now agonizes over which piece of candy to choose.

See, I told you October was eventful. Happy Halloween!