Halloween 2015

Fall is just the best time of year, in my opinion.The weather starts to cool down and the trees turn beautiful shades of red and orange. It's my birthday month and I get to wear boots over my jeans and cardigans. My second favorite holiday also happens to land in the fall and there is the excitement of other holidays around the corner. This year we started off the festivities by going to Linder Farms with our friends the Mannings. Luke had so much fun climbing on hay bales and running through hay bale mazes, riding tractors and Go Karts with dad and playing in the corn pit with his buddy Jackson. We also took a hay ride out to several huge pumpkin patches to choose our pumpkins.

On the hay ride

This pumpkin gets so much bigger every year

We have a tradition of carving pumpkins the Monday before Halloween for FHE. This year Luke wasn't able to carve his own but he was so much more involved in the whole process, which was fun to see. We ran around the driveway and "helped" us scoop out our pumpkins and draw on them. The designs we chose are indicative of our interests.

Yuck, guts!

Bryan: Protoss symbol from Starcraft

Me: Deathly Hallows...

...and a snitch, because I had room

Luke: Daniel Tiger

Also this past weekend we had Bryan's cousin Laura and two guy friends come for a visit (they were the 11th Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory in the last Centurion form.... so awesome). Laura's newlywed sister lives nearby in Nampa and their parents happened to be visiting them that weekend as well so we had a big Halloween party! We had mummy french bread pizza and bone shaped bread sticks. We played a lot of games and they held down the fort and handed out candy while we took Luke trick or treating.

I just love coming up with ideas for costumes. Seriously like five months ago I was like, "Halloween is coming up-- I better think of a good costume for Luke!" Five months ago. To be fair, I had his Link costume picked out for his first Halloween before he was ever born. I've become quite the crafter in the past few years so I love making his costume. Though we don't necessarily always plan to have family costumes, Bryan and I decided to go along with Luke's theme. I decided to go with a Hobbit this year because Bryan got really into the movies this year and watched each other them several times with different commentaries. I would often come downstairs on Saturday morning to find him and Luke watching one of them. And, since Hobbits are short and, lets be honest, kind of cute, I decided that's what Luke should be! Bryan and I decided to be simple version of Gandalf and Arwen (chosen only because I have brown hair like her rather than Galadriel). Someone pressed us on which Hobbit Luke was and I really didn't have one in mind. If I had to choose I'd say he probably most resembles Samwise Gamgee.

Our little Lord of the Rings family

My adorable Hobbit!

Gandalf and a Hobbit on their way to Isengard... er trick or treating

Luke had so much fun trick or treating! We did a big loop around our neighborhood but it wasn't too many houses because a lot of people had their lights off, no doubt trick or treating themselves. He didn't know how to say "trick or treat" yet but he did know how to reach out his hand after someone answered the door. He loved collecting the candy and putting it in his bag and was so well behaved as well. I just love my little family. I hope everyone else had a Happy Halloween too!