Happy Halloween!

Remember how we only sort of planted a garden this year? Well, as it turns out we actually managed to grow a few things! The kids and I went out to the backyard recently and look at all we found!

We had so much fun picking everything and ended up with several pumpkins, gourds, and a few corn stalks. So we carefully carried everything to the front yard and decided to decorate for fall.

Okay, so now that old wagon wheel I wanted SD to throw away doesn't look that bad.

The kids had a lot of fun decorating the front of the house, and the best part was it only cost me the price of the seed packages last spring! Can you believe it? It actually looks like I planned to decorate my house this year, ha!

This was the first year all 6 of us actually spent Halloween together. Usually at least one or two people end up at parties, or trick-or-treating with friends, so it was really nice for a change to spend this holiday together.

We started our fun by carving our pumpkins. Geez - could the bags under my eyes seriously be any larger???!!!! Note to self: no more pictures without makeup, I realize scary is acceptable on Halloween, but come on.

LA with her giant pumpkin. I helped with the carving and she pulled out the seeds.

IK picked out these huge pumpkins to carve this year. They were very thick inside. A few minutes after this photo I accidentally broke off the entire blade of the knife inside the pumpkin.

So SD found a great solution to our carving problems!

It actually worked incredibly well! We may not go back to using a knife anymore. There wasn't enough room on our tiny table for everyone, so we spread out on the floor.

KW wasn't interested in pulling out any seeds, just watching.

This year's costumes: IK went as a ninja for the millionth year in a row! We actually tried banning him from being a ninja, but it's what he loves, so that's fine. Of course, since he had already worn his costume earlier in the week at a Halloween party, by the time we went trick-or-treating he didn't have all the pieces of his costume anymore.

EJ went as a lovely Alice in Wonderland.

LA went as a go-go girl. Someone asked her if she was the girl from the Austin Powers movies & she had no idea what they meant.

KW went as a little scarecrow. He refused to wear the hat as soon as I finished taking these pictures.

And Scarlet had to join in the fun too, as a hot dog of course!

For once, the weather for trick-or-treating was absolutely PERFECT!!! It was so nice and warm all evening. Finally, no walking door to door in the freezing, cold wind.

IK ended up wearing KW's hat as we walked around.

It was a wonderful evening and we had so much fun. Hope you had an awesome Halloween too!