I'll probably (hopefully), say this again, but this was like, the best Halloween EVER! We had such a fun weekend.
On Friday, Ava had her Halloween party and parade at school. I have to say that it's refreshing that she attends a school where the children are actually still allowed to celebrate Halloween. As usual, Ava had planned her costume far in advance. She went as Annie Oakley. You might be curious as to how she arrived at her decision to masquerade as this historical sharp-shooter. It stemmed from her newest 6 year-old quirk: documentary watching. The kid loves to watch documentaries. Mostly on The History Channel and Animal Planet. Her latest obsession is Swamp People on the History Channel. It's hilarious to hear her walking around and imitating the bayou accents of the anglers from Swamp People.
Anyway, one day in early September, she watched a whole documentary on Annie Oakley and immeadiately adopted her as a personal hero. Apparently, she identified with Ms. Oakley. "Hey mom, she was born in Ohio, just like me!" For the last month, I've been bombarded with fun facts about Annie Oakley. When I asked Ava what she would like to be for Halloween, guess what she chose?
So, on Friday, I helped her into her costume and curled her hair. "Mom, Annie Oakley had CURLY hair."
Unlike some moms, I don't mind if my kids have play guns (I have a whole platform on this issue, but I won't grandstand just here and now), but I do have 1 rule...the same rule that my parents required of my sisters and I when we went through our childhood Wild West phase: don't EVER point them at another person.
Ava got caught up in the moment (forgot my rule), and pulled a quick-draw. Then she came after me...and my camera, clicking away on her plastic guns.
I finally talked her down and convinced her to take a posed shot or two. Note: she would not let go of her guns. I guess I don't need to push the whole, "stick to your guns" lesson on her.
Hey, Ava....go snake-eyed.
Posing as a cute cow girl.
I have no idea what's up with this pose. She kept doing this with her guns. Maybe from the documentary? Hmmm.
The story of Emily's costume is not nearly as interesting. After going through all of Ava's dress-up clothes, Emily chose to be a witch...and the costume fit. I made this costume for Ava when she was 3. The only obstacle that I had to overcome was that Emily wanted to be an "evil" witch and requested that I paint her green. (Too much Wizard of Oz, I suppose.) I finally convinced her to be a pretty witch, thank goodness!
Here she is demonstrating her newest dance move before our Halloween party: The Robot.
She really was a pretty witch.
Unless you said, "Show me your MEAN witch face." and then she did this:
But her "cuteness" took over again pretty quickly...
After a busy Saturday, we decided to skip our scheduled Trunk or Treat and spend a little family time carving pumpkins.
Ava donned her "pumpkin guts" gloves for the occasion.
Here's my pumpkin. The perfectionist in me hated that the tempra paint started to peel upon drying. Then I reasoned that the peeling paint made the spooky old house appear more realistic. Ha!
Here's some footage from when we lit our pumpkins, just before bedtime.
Today, after church we rushed home to prepare for the Halloween pizza party that we hosted for 6 neighborhood families at our house.
Ava and I had big plans to make these owl cupcakes.
Here's a closer look. Fun cupcakes for such a little bit of effort!
Ava was an awesome sous chef! Her job was to separate the double-stuffed Oreos and sort all of the orange and brown Reece's pieces out of the bag, then press the brown candies into the Oreos for "eyes".
She did take a little break to "enhance" her costume.
While she was working, she decided that since it was Halloween, we needed to serve up a plate of eyeball cookies. She enlisted her little sister and her friend Anna to help.
While we worked on our project, Mike worked on a project of his own...a pumpkin cooler!
I was super impressed by his pumpkin carving. One neighbor pointed out, "Give a man beer, and he can be incredibly creative." lol.
The guests arrived, and 16 kiddos, dressed to impress and anticipating the year's biggest sugar high went wild in our home after filling up on pizza and snacks.
Here are some pics of Ava's girlfriends around the dinner table.
Luckily, I had an excuse to escape the craziness of the house for the driveway, where I fried over 200 donuts and served cider to our trick-or-treaters.
Here I am, manning a turkey fryer full o' fritters.
We served Apple Cider fritters and Pumpkin Spice Donuts with shots of cold cider. I may have also shamelessly plugged Krista's Kitchen, since the recipes were featured on my other blog. As usual the donuts in the driveway were a BIG hit with the neighborhood. I had lots of returning trick or treaters from last year who stated that they were really hoping I'd be in my driveway again. My favorites were the kiddos that exclaimed, "This is the BEST house! This lady did this last year. We LOVE coming here!" Awww. Totally made the work worth the effort!
Here's the final shot from the night- the girls after consuming WAY to much candy before bedtime.(Isn't that a Halloween tradition?) Check out Em. She changed into her p.j.'s to ride out her sugar coma.
Now I sit here and assess the damage incurred over the past 6 hours: I smell like a fried donut, my house looks like it has been hit by a tornado, and I am completely pooped...but I wouldn't change a thing. It was a great Halloween! I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend too!
