HaLlOwEeN 2015

After decorating the yard with hundreds of pounds of pumpkins last year we were really excited about the prospect of taking the seeds from all those pumpkins and attempting our own pumpkin patch this year! Jack had watched a bunch of youtube videos on how to preserve and plant the seeds and with literally thousands of seeds we were feeling quite confident in our ability to pull off a patch! At first things were looking real good. We had vines taking over the garden area and blooms everywhere! Unfortunately though, the blooms would eventually wither away and there was no sign of pumpkins! After a little more research, we learned there are male and female blooms and you need both to have successful pollination. Apparently, we only had a garden full of male blossoms! Every morning the blooms would open up really large and it was so beautiful but sadly none of those gorgeous blooms would turn into anything. Finally, at the end of Sept. I noticed a few small balls of something growing. To our surprise, we ended up with an assortment of orange and green "things". I wouldn't necessarily classify them as pumpkins but at this point we were just happy to finally have something! Needless to say, I don't see farming in our future...

Here are Jack and Sage busy planting more pumpkin seeds once we saw that our first batch of seeds were sprouting vines!



Here is Sage with the first small batch we got. There was only one that I think could actually be classified as a carving pumpkin...



Here are the fruits of all our labor. haha! Although they weren't nearly as amazing as all the pumpkins displayed in our yard last year, they were definitely unique in their own way and they found their home on our dining room table...



A trip to the store was required to get some actual carving pumpkins...



This year the kids were looking forward to trick or treating especially since last year we were out of town and they didn't go. I kept reminding the boys that they are on the verge of going from the trick or treaters to the greeters but they would hear none of that. Ty was just lucky he got to go at all though because he had been the sickest I'd ever seen him the whole week leading up to Halloween but he was determined to go and since the weather cooperated I gave him the ok. Thankfully unlike the last few years, we had NO RAIN and mild temps, at least until around 9. But by then all the little goblins were back in the house since Mason has a strict trick or treating ordinance that only allows kids to be out between the hours of 6-8! Connor and Ty and a couple of their friends all went as characters from some show they watch (I couldn't tell you what the show was) and Sage had gotten the idea I'm sure from some Disney show or video that she wanted to be a detective. Sage turned down an invitation to attend a Halloween party at a friend's house so she could instead trick or treat with her dad in our neighborhood! We will assume it's because she enjoys the one on one time with her dad rather than the fact our neighborhood gives out really good Halloween candy...Indeed she came home with one red face from all the running that she did and much too much candy. The first words out of Jack's mouth when they returned was he had never seen her run for two hours straight...haha! This didn't surprise us though. Since her first year trick or treating Sage has had more stamina than her brothers. This girl loves to trick or treat which is funny because I just tossed out Easter candy that she had yet to eat.



As you can see the night was quite the success! But it wouldn't be complete without a little trading taking place at the end of the night. Negotiating 101 in the works...