Halloween Fun

The past little while has been all about Halloween. The boys are so excited for it. Tavita walks around singing his own song of, "Hal, Hal, Hallow, Halloween." Brayden sings endless songs he's learned in preschool and talks non-stop about "spooky things".
On Saturday my parents were visiting so we headed out to the pumpkin patch we went to last year. It's not a big fancy one, an older gentleman runs it and you get to cut the pumpkin yourself. We managed to get there just as a 15-min storm blew in and it was FREEZING. Needless to say it was a very brief visit but got our pumpkins regardless.
Lei Lei selected her pumpkin, err gourd, and decided to accessorize with it!

Brayden cutting his pumpkin of choice

The biggest kid of them all with his pumpkin. He searched everywhere and was so excited to find the "perfect one"

Tavita hacking away to obtain his prize

Monday we decided to get into the Halloween spirit and do some activities. While Junior was at work I helped the boys make handprint spiders. You fold a piece of paper in half trace their four fingers and a bit of the hand on the fold. Cut it out, unfold and you have a spider! The boys loved coloring them and putting them around the house so we had a "spooky house." Brayden even cut a few out on his own.

Then we started in on the dessert, "Ghost in the Graveyard." Use pudding, whip cream, and crushed oreos to make the bottom layer. Sprinkle with more crushed oreos to make the dirt and refrigerate. Decorated some cookies to look like headstones. The boys then put the headstones throughout the "dirt", and added some candy corn and pumpkins. Then we dolloped some whip cream, added eyes and we had our ghost. The boys were so excited to eat it. Only problem is they did so much snacking on candy and cookies while we made it that they couldn't eat more than a bite or two once we served it up. I didn't think I could put my boys on a sugar-overload but I succeeded!

To top the night off we did pumpkin carving. The boys lasted long enough to scrape a few seeds out and do a few cuts on their pumpkins then the rest was left to Junior. I did help on the final one though.
Daddy helping Brayden carve his pumpkin-scarecrow

Mommy helping Tavita with the "Boo" ghost

The finished products


The boys proud of their art. Yes, Tavita is wearing nothing but a jacket. He seems to be going through a bit of a clothing strike at the moment.


We got "spooked" while we were carrying out our festivities. The doorbell rang and we found a paper ghost and some goodies with the instructions to do the same to two other people. Today, the boys and I made some cupcakes with sprinkles and ,you guessed it, canycorn and pumpkins. Yet another sugar-overload, gotta love Halloween time! Tonight Junior took the boys to deliver them and they loved "spooking" their friends.
Today, Wednesday, some friends of ours invited us for a trainride a family in their neighborhood puts on. I have never seen anything like it. The front house is an average house, nothing eye catching. However, you look a little closer and you see there are minature train tracks laid out. We're talking permanent tracks. You walk around the corner and it's a slew of huge gorgeous homes. Apparently the parents (who live in the front house) owned a ton of land behind the house and owned a very successful contracting bussiness. As their kids married, they gave them some of the land and built them a house. The entire familiy lives there and share a pool, tennis court, volleyball court, soccerfield etc. The train tracks work their way around all the houses with little split off so it can go right up to each house. Every year for Halloween the do a haunted train ride and then Polar Express at Christmas. They go ALL out and open it to the public for free.
The boys loved it, Tavita kept asking to go back to the "pumpkin train", but were rather spooked by it at the same time. It's obvious they attract quite a crowd at times because you go through a series of tunnels and tents converted into little spook alleys with areas roped off as if you were waiting in line for a ride at Disneyland. Fortunately we got there before the crowds but the boys managed to get spooked enough. Brayde scares really easily, you can give him just about anything and his imagination will run with it.
We went through the first little tunnel where they had body bags and coffins. Brayden kind of held his breath and walked through choosing not to look at anything. There was a ghostly looking guy standing real still in a coffin and as people walked by he'd try and scare them. Since we had little kids he simply waved. Brayden picked up the pace a bit but Tavita just stopped and waved back. The guy busted up laughing.
We went into the next tent where it was just an open room with the whole zig-zag stand in line thing, except no one was inthere. They had a giant face projected on the wall and a booming voice (kind of like Wizard of Oz). The boys walked in the tent and just froze. I was videoing and tried asking Brayden what was going on. He was too scared to even acknowledge someone was talking to him. Junior told him we were going to have to walk through (note it was still daylight so the face was pretty faded, of all the things I didn't think it would scare the boys). Brayden started walking very hesitantly and when he got to the first turn in the zig-zag, right next to the face) he bolted. We're talking sprinting faster then I knew a 4-year old could run. He ran up and down each zig-zag, pushed his way through the people standing at the exit and kept going. The poor kid was running for his life. Junior had to go after him and bring him back.
Tavita finally got his scare when we were getting to board the train. They had a light show with the intro to "Nightmare Before Christmas" and a flashing jack-o-lantern telling the story. Again, I didn't think it would scare the kids. A lot of the other kids weren't paying attention. All the sudden I hear a wail of "Mommy" Tavita jumped out of his chair and ran to me. I tried telling him it was okay. He pointed to the jack-o-lantern and said, "no, that's not okay." Brayden was so proud he wasn't scared. Funny how somethings that terrify some kids my boys don't blink at but then they are petrified of other things.
In the end the train ride was just spooky enough to make them squeal but not terrify them. It was a lot of fun and I thought it was great the family put on such a fun thing for the community.
The guy who tried to scare Tavita and got a wave in return, out walking about.


The train going past the front house (It's far but we were getting back in the car and thought we'd grab a quick shot between all the cars going by)

I'm glad Halloween provides for so many fun activities while we hide in our houses from the weather outside (it snowed today).