Kashann and Clan

 After tons of begging since bringing it home, I caved and cut into a pumpkin two weeks before Halloween. But once we got the seeds out, the kids all took off and I was left to carve it on my own. Thinking that this would be one shriveled pumpkin by Halloween and what a waste that was of good pumpkin I started thinking about pie instead. So I quartered, skinned, boiled, mashed, and froze the pumpkin while no one was looking. Canned pumpkin is a $1.50 a can and for some reason someone had marked my  pumpkin down to that same price. Once the job was done I had enough from that reduced pumpkin to make five pies or lots and lots of pumpkin pancakes.  My children weren't too happy to find the pumpkin in bags in the freezer when they came back to check on how the work was coming along. And they don't like all the pumpkin pancakes I have been making instead of pies.

 Camille carved this in class to exhibit in the school pumpkin stroll. The kids have their own school pumpkin patch and grow so many pumpkins that they each have one to carve and place out in the woods for the big night when Mom and Dad come to stroll through the lighted jack-lanterned path. We have been in three grade schools now total and it is always so interesting to me how each run the show in such different ways, starting with Halloween. The first did huge Halloween bingo/carnivals, the second school- was our first school to let the kids wear their costumes during school and dismissed them at noon every Halloween so they had plenty of time for Prep (Halloween is big in Buffalo). Here it is all about the pumpkin, our state fruit. So the big event is the Family Pumpkin Stroll. First you meet in the school sugar shack. It's a little shed out in the woods where later they will make maple syrup as a class. Hot apple cider is served along with homemade pumpkin treats. Farther out in the woods is a big bonfire where families gathered to listened to a story teller after you were done strolling the woods.  We loved it! I like these kind of fall activities.

 But as far as Halloween itself. . .  it stresses me out every year.  First of all I hate carving pumpkins. Especially the really, really hard ones that break your Cutco knife. Now that isn't worth saving the price of a can. That happened on the second pumpkin we carved into because I was feeling really guilty on Halloween day that we still didn't have a jack-o-lantern.  

And I don't look forward to creating costumes every year for 5 kids. I tell myself that it's because I want to foster their own creativity by leaving it up to them.  But we all know that it's I'm just too lazy and too cheap and that's why my kids have to scrounge every Halloween.


This cowboy costume wasn't so bad. I had picked up the boots, hat and shirt over the course of a year at different thrift stores. I was pretty proud of how I had planned ahead for at least one child.
Caroline and Camille didn't get a lot of help. The thing is about Camille is if you bought or sewed her a real costume she wouldn't wear it. She has to have a hand in it. So my Camille had her heart set on being a swan lake princess. She found what she needed in the ever growing costume collection and I bought here some feathery wings after her ones she made out of hangers and white nylons weren't looking too swany, though I was quite impressed with her efforts. Caroline got this thrown on her 10 minutes before we left. I think it is her 3rd time as the orange witch. Camille did both of their face makeup. Kennon was running trying to come up with some thing after a last minute decision to trick or treat after all. Savannah was long gone to trick or treat with friends in the neighborhood dressed as the Greek Goddess Artemis, which was ALL Savannah. And I was out raking leaves with Brent while most of this was going on.  I ran in and felt bad for my lack of Halloween spirit so I threw on the Indian Costume that I have had since high school. Brent decided he was sick at this point and I left to trick or treat with three of my children.  (By the way. . . in this area trick or treating is always on the day before Halloween.  Not just when it falls on Sunday. Every year it's on the 30th.  And don't bother asking them to explain it or complaining. It's live free or die around here and they want to celebrate it a day early and that's that) 

So after all these years my kids are used to being on their own for costumes and they don't complain.  But, what if I was a cool Mom like this?
  

 These are our friends Ezra and Candace from Buffalo.  That kind of planning and creativity is both inspiring and overwhelming to me.  The Trockel's are another family that you can count on every Halloween.  I pulled these off their blogs and am going to start a picture file on creative people to get the juices flowing next Halloween.

But Hey, that's not what Halloween is about anyway. My kid's favorite part is the last thing we do. The Candy Trade.