All Hallow's Eve

I believe this is the first year in the history of the Fallstrom family that I did not make the kid's Halloween costumes. (Of course, there was the year Grandma Nancy was here and did most of the costume making, but still...) These costumes were 100% not made by me or anyone I know. Probably somebody in China worked hard over them. Despite the non-homemade-ness of their costumes, I still think the kids look darn cute!

Finley and Keeley's costumes came from Costco. Such adorable little princesses!

Love that silly scrunched face!

Isaac's costume was borrowed from a neighbor. He didn't love this costume, probably because he doesn't have a clue who Zorro is. He still looks adorable though!

I think this costume actually shows off his beautiful blue eyes!

I think the stores have a deplorable lack of cute boy costumes, and we just didn't see anything in the store worth getting, so we had a masked avenger.

Like the other girls, Sareny was also a princess. My friend Aubrey purchased this adorable costume years ago before she even had a daughter of her own. Her daughter, who is 4, refuses to wear anything girly, so Aubrey was going to sell this online. I offered to buy it from her, and she kindly gave it to us! It is so gorgeous, and so is the girl wearing it. :)

The girls love Halloween because it is one of the few times in the year when they are allowed to wear makeup.

Another picture of princess Finley. Who doesn't like you to call her princess Finley.

All the kids. Sareny had to hold Keeley or she would run away.

As evidenced by this photo, where she is indeed trying to get down and run away. But I loved the sweet little pose Finley was doing!

Then somehow we convinced Keeley not to run away.

My sweet, adorable children!

I made up another tray of strawberry ghosts and eyeballs on forks for a party we were going to at our friends the Wray's. We had a fun evening with friends eating, chatting, and trick-or-treating together.

Carving Pumpkins

We carved our pumpkins the night before Halloween. In this desert heat, you do not want to carve your pumpkins too early!

The kids all helped scoop out their pumpkins.

Sareny clearly doesn't like the way it feels!

Haha.

Then we got to work carving. Sareny drew and carved her own design, Isaac drew his and Daddy carved it, and Finley came up with what she wanted, and I drew and carved it. And then Finley set to work taking some pictures of us.

Sareny hard at work.

The camera culprit.

Here we are hard at work. And I must say, Finley's design took me some time to carve.

A selfie.

Here are the finished works of art. Left to right--Sareny's, Finley's, and IJ's.

Finley wanted a kitty, so I came up with this. The kids also selected their own pumpkins at the store, and while Sareny and Isaac tried to pick the biggest ones they could find, Finley looked for a cute, smaller pumpkin. She didn't want it to be too big.

Sareny did this by herself, with a little help from me on the bows.

Isaac's design, with a Harry Potter lightning scar.

We had a fun time carving our jack-o-lanterns.

Spooky-ooky Dinner

For our annual spooky dinner, we brought back some old favorites and tried out some new things as well. This year, I made ghostly strawberries, which were a big hit.

We also had witches fingers, and eyeballs on forks. For the eyeballs, I dipped donut holes in white chocolate, then used red, blue, and black chocolate to add creepy details. I'm sure these would work equally well with oreo truffles or cake pops, but really, donut holes were just way easier. I bought a finger shaped cookie pan and used the Wilton sugar cookie recipe, and colored part of the dough green for the witch's fingers. If you didn't have a special finger pan, you could pretty easily shape the dough into fingers. I think the green tapered fingernail adds quite a bit to the overall look.

Really, I just thought those turned out so cute this year!

We had deviled eyeballs as well.

 We invited our friends the Daniel's over for the occasion, and it was so fun!

This year, I tried my hand at making a monster claw. It turned out unbelievably creepy looking! I told the kids that daddy had been out hunting the night before, so monster claw was on the menu. To make this monstrosity, I found a meatloaf recipe online (this was my first time making meatloaf!) and shaped it like a claw. I used a slice of onion as fingernails. Then I spread a layer of ketchup on the hand and baked it according to the recipe. Near the end of the cooking time, I added a layer of sliced cheese and cooked it for a bit more. It gave it the perfect look. Then I transferred the claw to a serving tray and surrounded it with mashed potatoes. Best. Main. Dish. Ever. I even ate some of it. Aubrey also brought some yummy pepperoni pizza bat wings and some cake pop eyeballs, so there was plenty of festive food..

And here is a shot of the whole group. So cute!

Vampires, Witches, and Zombies, oh my!

Yeah, Halloween was so last month and a half, but here we are as monsters anyway.

Finley didn't like the green skinned, scary witch I made of her, so here she is as a cute witch.

As soon as I saw this program, I knew IJ needed to be a zombie!

Move over Bella and Edward, these guys are some hottie super bomb vampires.

Anyway, a fun program to Halloween-ify your family!

Spooky-ooky Dinner and Halloween

We had our traditional spooky-ooky dinner the day before Halloween this year, and Scott and Elise joined us. On the menu--witches brew, of course, and witch finger cookies.

Deviled monster eyes.

Jack-o-lantern quesadillas. This meal was thrown together at the last minute, but I thought it was a fun time.

On Halloween, we quickly carved pumpkins before our neighborhood party. Poor Keeley was not happy to be relegated to the exersaucer, but sometimes you have no choice.

Finley and Lexi worked on one together.

Finley decided she wanted a happy pumpkin, and it turned out super cute.
We cleaned all the pumpkins out while the other kids were still at school so they would be ready as soon as they got home.

I helped Isaac do a scary one and Lexi helped Sareny with a design she came up with on her own. The kids also carved a little pumpkin for Keeley. Below--Isaac's, Keeley's, Sareny's, Finley's.

We had dinner at our neighbor's house, and then Keith and Keeley sat with the neighbors while Lexi and I took the kids around with the group.

Sareny and Isaac with a girl in our group.

Finley wanted to sit in the stroller. The whole time. Even if we were just moving from one garage to another, she would run and jump in.

Me and the kids. I was glad to have the stroller though, because at some point, the kids' buckets got too heavy so they dumped the candy in the basket.

We were joined on this outing by a nerdy PE coach...we pretended we didn't know her when she started olympic-style speed walking around the neighborhood. Actually, it was pretty darn hilarious.

The kids' pumpkins all lit up.

And a parting shot of the kids by their pumpkins. We had such a fun Halloween this year!