Halloween 2020

 Halloween is always a pretty great holiday at this house and this year it was probably more looked forward to than ever before. One because of Covid and two the kids are getting older and remember what we do and look forward to it. We put up all the Halloween decorations on Oct. 1st. This is our first holiday season in this house so it was fun to see it all come together in this new place. We also started talking about Halloween costumes really early and because I was feeling crafty I feel the costumes are a little more than I usually do. That said they are still homemade and you can tell, but my kids loved them and we had fun dreaming them up, and putting them all together. We were characters from our new favorite graphic novels Mighty Jack and Zita the Space Girl. All that said this is how Halloween shook out for us this year.

We started with our traditional meal of Autumn Sausage Casserole on Saturday night. Then Sunday we had moldy mac and worms. I was feeling like baking that day, so I also tried a fall fruit pizza. It was really good. I will probably pick a stronger flavored apple next time, but it was still really good. That night we also got 'Boo'ed. The girls were so excited. It was a really good boo. We got lanterns, glow stuff, witch hats that light up, candy, and other toys. My girls loved it and it was the perfect start to Halloween week. 

Fall Fruit Pizza

Moldy Mac n Worms

Kylee eating worms

Gaupo helping Kade learn to eat worms

Abby and her worm

Tia with a mouthful of mold

Monday school was cancelled for snow. It was so great and sadly wont happen again because the school district said that every day they have in school matters, so now we have to do virtual learning on snow days. LAME! Oh well, I enjoyed the one I got and so did the girls. They got to play outside with our neighbor for about 2 hours because none of them had school. It was so great because then I could work inside in piece. The gloves I was making still failed and I was out of fabric to try again, but I got to do it alone. Anyway, we tried a new dinner--spaghetti brain. Luckily soccer practice was cancelled due to snow, so Gaupo had plenty of time to figure out what to do. I take Tia to swim lessons, so he made dinner while we were doing that. I think it was a win for our family because it was pretty simple and they ate it. There are things we will do different next year, but it probably made it on to the tradition list. That night as FHE, we passed the BOO on to a neighbor and then to a family in our ward. It was so fun and the girls loved it. It is totally their first ding-dong ditch activity.

Spaghetti Brain

Abby learned she likes to eat and play in snow.

Tuesday was meatloaf ham and spider spuds for dinner. It was good planning on our part because Tuesday the girls are at school and so I had the afternoon to work on meatloaf and potatoes and then when they got home I could pay attention to them.

spider spuds

Monster hand

Wednesday was the kick-off for school festivities. Tia got to dress-up in her costume and she LOVED it. They were going to do a virtual Halloween parade, but have had technical difficulties, so I don't know that will work out but Tia still loved wearing her costume. While she was at school and the twins were napping, Kylee and I worked on her costume. It was mostly done, but she needed  belt or sheath to hold her sword, so we did a four-strand braid to make a belt for her. It was fun to work together on it. That day also a friend dropped off a bag of hand-me-downs and in it were a pair of black boots. She really wanted boots for her costume, but that was too much money for Halloween, so I had said no, but then there they were and free, so she had them and she was so excited. It was a very fun tender mercy. That night Tia had swim, there was still snow so soccer was canceled and so Gaupo was on dinner duty and made great spider chicken burgers.

Spider Burgers

Thursday both girls got to dress-up and go to school. They were so excited to go together and be all dressed up. They had a great day at school. We had jack-o-lantern cassadias for dinner.

Lilly King Kylee and Tia as Zita the space girl

More of the girls.

Just one more because they are so cute!

Zita the Space Girl (Tia)

Lilly King (Kylee)

Jack-o-lantern Cassadias.

Friday, was a big day. Not so much for Halloween though we miraculously got some of that in there to but because we made applesauce a ton of it. Kitt and Matthew came up for the weekend and we did applesauce. We eat a ton of it and I had some apple from Idaho, plus apple were on sale, so I bought more and so did Kitt and we did them all. I started the process solo around 11-ish and we didn't finish until about 10-ish. It was a long day of applesauce. We canned about 80 pints and 14 quarts of applesauce. My new kitchen is amazing for canning and it took 4 adults and two kids to do it all and boy by the end we were tired. However, we not only canned applesauce, we managed to do monster tacos for dinner with homemade root beer. Home made root beer I think is our kids favorite Halloween tradition. They love the fog that comes off of it. I also think it is the first time I have canned a whole day and not been like 'lets just pick up a pizza.' Anyway, it was fun and accomplishing. That night we also showed the girls Girl vs. Monster which they liked and it did not give them scary dreams so another win for sure.

Homemade rootbeer. Tia, Kylee, and Kade.

More rootbeer funn. Abby, Kade, Gaupo

Applesauce galore!

My monster taco

Gaupo's monster taco

Saturday was another big day for us. The morning started off with Gaupo going to work and the rest of us enjoying pumpkin pancakes with the kids getting pumpkin and ghost shaped ones. Then Kitt took Kylee and Tia to Kylee's soccer game while I worked on the the twins costumes, made a picnic lunch, and visited on the phone. When they got back from the game, we all quickly changed into costumes and headed to the ward party. It was at a park in Mead. My kids are still kind of getting to know the kids in the ward, so it was a little hard for them, but they still had fun playing. There were also some spookily dressed kids that made them a little leery, so that wasn't great especially when Tia was to scared to go to bed that night. Anyway, we had lunch played at the park, talked to some people and then they did a trunk-or-treat which pretty much was people stand around the park and hand out candy as the kids walk around. It was fun and the kids got a ton of candy, so they were all very happy. When we got home we put the twins down fr a nap and just relaxed for a minute. Then we carved pumpkins. It was fun to let them do it again. I forgot I didn't have candles or sparklers this year, so we stuck playdough in the bottom with a birthday candle and it worked great. That night we had pumpkin and snake shaped pizza and leftover root beer for dinner. Then we met up with our neighbor for some trick-or-treating. It was the first time Gaupo and I have ever been able to go together (Thanks Kitt and Matthew for handing out candy for us) and you can tell who wants to go to every door with a light (me) and who wants a candy but with minimal effort (Gaupo). Its all good though and then kids had a blast with friends and seeing neighbors and it was really fun with way to much candy. Once home, we looked through the candy ate a bunch, lit the candles in the pumpkins, and sent the kids to bed. Once they were in bed, we watched Mostly Ghostly,  and then the adults went to bed. 

Kade as Mighty Jack

Abby as Jack's little sister Maddy

Tia as Zita

Kylee as Lilly King

Tia, Abby, Kylee, and Kade

Kylee, Abby, Tia, Me (as Madrigral) and Kade

Joseph, Zita, Jack, Lilly Kind, and Maddy

Team USA--Matthew, Kitt, and Jay

Carving pumpkings, Tia, Matthew, Kitt, and Kylee

Tia and her pumpkin

Kylee and her pumpkin

Playing around while trying to light pumpkins.

The kids pumpking shaped pizza.

Snake pizza.

Tia with her candy.

Kylee with her stash.

Abby 

Kade

Tia and Kylee with lit pumpkins.

Sunday, was a day of rest a much needed day of rest. We went to church, although, I probably shouldn't have because I had a runny nose. I felt bad once I had thought about it more, but I was honeslty like its just a cold, but I shouldn't take chances like that right now. I am still learning with all this Covid stuff when to say no and when it is still okay. Anyway, what is done is done and I went and I will try really hard not to make that mistake again. Then when we got home we had lunch and I took a  nap. Then we had mac and cheese for dinner and I visited a bit with Gaupo and then we went to bed. It was a super fun, busy, week for us but it was Halloween and I thoroughly enjoy it. We celebrated well I think. It wasn't too crazy hard (at least by our standards) we still had fun and it was a combo of big and little things. Plus, it was so fun to watch the twins figure this whole Halloween thing out. I don't know that they super get it, but they do get that they have a treat bucket full of candy on the counter and they can eat and they LOVE it.

Happy Halloween!!