Halloween 2010

or

Fall Family Time

or

Our Growth Group

or

Parenting in the Raw


Out of all these title choices I ultimately decide that Halloween 2010 was the best, kind of all encompassing!!

Did we have an awesome Halloween? Over all yes. Did it have it's moments? Yes. But that is what families are all about. That even amidst screaming babies, cranky two-year-old and a 5 going on 18 little girl, we still manage to find the joy and love in every (most) moments of the days.

In general I love the fall. Going to the pumpkin patch. Getting out the sweatshirts. Carving pumpkins. Warm apple cider. Yum. But Halloween, dressing up and trick-or-treating is not my bag of tea. I could do with out that part of it but my kids love it. This year I think we managed to strike a good balance.

To start with our pumpkin patch trip was priceless. We went to Nipomo Pumpkin
Patch and of course manage to pick out 2 huge pumpkins to adorn our front steps until November 30th when we get to partake in the 2nd annual pumpkin roll (stay tuned).

My favorite part of the pumpkin patch is to get a tradition pumpkin picture of all the kids, however that was a major fail this year. About 10 minutes to the trip I realized that my picture was not in the cards. Matteo was not going to cooperate. Sam is 8 therefore standing with your siblings or family, is just not cool apparently. Serafina was ready and willing to participate, and well AJ was AJ...a baby. After I let my picture go we had a great time and did manage some interesting group shots! Gotta love it. Here is AJ but my internet is being to slow to load more so hit my dads page for the rest, they are great: click here



On the day before Halloween we had our pumpkin carving day!! Wohoo! The kids all had a great time carving. We managed to get our tradition baby in pumkin shot, and we even carved what I have to assume is the worlds smallest pumpkin. Followed by an great dinner: candy corn pizza and dragon breath bread sticks! Again click here to see a pictures. (because my internet is to slow to load.)

Halloween Day - started awesome and ended awesome. There were a few bumps along the way. In the morning we headed off to church were we heard an awesome message about Reformation Sunday and 2 Timothy. Then it was home to hang out until trick-or-treating in the village, and we would end the night with our Growth Group (ahh my happy balance).

Here is a picture of the group all dressed up and ready to head to the village..





Whats that you say?

I have 4 kids.

Yes your right.

My daughter is in the house screaming because..her hair hurts, her costume is bugging her, her socks are scratchy and well pretty much her world is falling apart.

I knew this was coming and tried to prepare for it. My daughter only wears cotton dresses. I am not kidding. So a week ago I her try on her costume and wear it around the house to make sure she was happy with it. She was. On Halloween I had her get her costume on 15min before the boys so we would have time to adjust what might not be right. But even with all the extra prep, when it came time to walk out the door she flipped a lid. I told her she needed to get it together and we would talk..but she was to wrapped up.

OH MY...it was amazing. So I had to say...sooo...sad.... It looks like you wont be trick-or-treating today.

Off to her room she went and home she stayed in her room. (Nana stayed home with her and graded papers). Nothing like being in the trenches of parenting on Halloween!!

She did get to go to Growth Group after trick-or-treating which was awesome. Our growth group leader spoke a little on reformation Sunday and also all saints day with the kids. And they put together some fall themed games. It was a great way to spend Halloween and it was an awesome balance for me, in letting the kids dress up and trick -or-treat but not having the whole day center on that aspect. The kids were just as happy if not more excited about getting together with our growth group then trick-or-treating (yeah).

And of course for all the pictures of trick-or-treating in the village click here.

That wraps up Halloween 2010.