Halloween 2010

I read an article this week that said that Halloween was the second most celebrated holiday in the United States next to Christmas. This was very confusing to me. I have never really understood the appeal. Growing up my parents were against celebrating Halloween and since I have been a parent, we have either attended a church Fall Festival or I have been out of town at our annual women's retreat. This has allowed me to not really have to make a decision about how I feel about Halloween - which works for me! This year the retreat was early and our church wasn't having a big Fall Festival, so it was time to grow up and make a real parental decision....

For starters, we were definitely keeping the tradition of Jack and Smiley (the pumpkins) alive. The girls were so excited they jumped right in to pumpkin gutting...

Alaynah thought it was awesome.

and Carlie, well let's just say, she didn't.

Of course, I had to call in reinforcements by the name of Bo, our own personal creative genius!

Bo and Alaynah were hard at work customizing pumpkins. Carlie lost interest after about 5 minutes. She hung in there long enough to inform us all that her pumpkin, formally known as Jack, would be named Vamp this year.

Not to be outdone, Alaynah decided her pumpkin, formally known as Smiley, would be called Hardy this year. Why Hardy? Who knows.....

And where was Jason during the festivities you ask? Well, he was working on a pumpkin of his own. He was just doing it in his own perfectionist way.... First he sketched out what he wanted from an idea he saw on the Internet.

Then he pinned his sketch to his pumpkin and used a straight pin to punch out a form to cut out.

Then the carving began. He carved, and he carved, and he carved....

And 4 hours later he was satisfied with his pumpkin....

And the final product.......

Vamp

Hardy

And the amazing spooky graveyard

Now on to the decision about Trick-or-Treating.... I just couldn't really think of any reason I was opposed to it - so we decided to bring on the costumes....

Carlie wanted to be a vampire queen. I don't know where the fascination with vampires has come from - I swear she hasn't had any part of the Twilight craze. Anyway, Vampire it was.

And her sister, being the exact opposite child that she is, wanted to be a Colonial Girl.

Getting a group picture that made sense proved to be an interesting problem.. Check out the sweet Colonial girl who is oblivious to the spooky vampire coming her way.

Oh no!

They decided to become friends and headed out to gather the loot!

We ended up going to the Country Club and walking around the main loop. After we finished walking the whole thing we found out it was more than two miles of fun-filled Halloween spookiness. No wonder every one else was driving... Oh well - We all loved it!

The Luttrull's will now be a part of the Halloween Holiday Craze!!!! I think I might even dress up myself next year - MAYBE......