Halloween Costumes

I really tried to get a theme going this year, but no one could agree and they're getting harder to manipulate, though I tried. So no theme sadly. Sophie went as Lucy from Narnia and Porter went as Edmund. Sawyer would have been Azlan if I hadn't hesitated and had bought the lion costume before it sold out in September! Instead he was a bat {which saved me $30 - yes, the lion costume was $45, hence the hesitation} and I was the witch. I had a great pair of black and purple tights which sadly were not photographed. And Briggs was not going as anything other than Harry Potter and has loved every minute he's had with his costume.

I really love to dress up and therefor to dress up my kids. So yeah, we went the whole 9 yards and actually dyed his hair brown! He also wouldn't let me cut it for almost 2 months and that's been killing me! He pulled it off pretty well though!

Porter really was not wearing parachute pants. I don't know what was going on with his pants in this picture.

I loved Sawyer's teeth with his costume! They're perfect little bat teeth! He was actually cutting four more and I was praying they wouldn't come in before we took Halloween pictures. Now I'm praying that the two that aren't through yet will hurry up already and get it over with so my baby can sleep through the night again!

So now that I've posted all the cute pictures...here's the one I would normally hide! This is the end of the photo shoot. Sophie is in tears because she claims Tyler has just elbowed her in the head. Tyler says that he was gently guiding her away from Sawyer with his forearm since she wouldn't quit trying to put my witch hat on him while we were trying to get his picture. Sawyer is crying because he's just done had enough. Porter is yawning because he couldn't care less about the photos. It's all about the candy as far as he's concerned. But Briggs is still smiling away because he has his Harry Potter costume on and couldn't be happier!

The Freaky Feast

So I really love Halloween. It's one of my favorite holidays! But for some reason it's also one of the most chaotic. For some reason I had blocked past Halloween mayhem when I decided swap the usual Taco Soup for a "Freaky Feast" and actually invited friends over for it. The kids were home all day which for some reason I thought would be helpful. Hellooooooooo! What was I thinking? I had all these great ideas, but in the end the food was totally thrown together. The drinks and cupcakes were fun, but the Severed Mummy Fingers needed some help and I didn't even put in a picture of the Deviled Egg Eyeballs. And did I mention we ate 40 minutes late? Which was only a big deal because Germans don't do Halloween. So we trick or teat on base and you only get from 6:00-8:00p.m. and the candy is GONE by 7:00. Ah well. The loot was still good and it was fun. And I'm sure I'll forget how crazy it was by next year and I'll try it all again!

Halloween Caroling

This is one of my all-time favorite traditions! Every year before Halloween we make gourmet carameled apples, get all dressed up in our costumes, and go caroling! We drive around to friends' homes with a plate of the apples and sing one of our Halloween songs. It's so much fun and a much warmer time of year to carol than December is!

Carving Pumpkins

Usually Tyler spends hours on his pumpkin in an attempt to out do me {although he'd never admit to it}! But this year, he completed his in record time so that he could help the kids with theirs. Or so he said...

This is Porter's and he actually did most of the carving on his! I helped him draw it, but he went to work with that little saw thing and stuck with it until he was done! He didn't want much to do with what was inside the pumpkin though!

This is Briggs pumpkin, but I'm not sure how much of it Briggs actually did. I think he pretty much just directed the production of his pumpkin and Tyler did all the work. Once it was finished, he decided the carving did look pretty fun after all and walked around with a knife, trying to cut everyone else's pumpkins the rest of the night.

I helped Sophie a little bit with putting her pattern on the pumpkin, but she carved this work of art herself! She did a pretty fantastic job!

And here is my cute pumpkin. I went the old fashioned way {no pattern} and was my own creative genius. The teeth were inspired by Sawyer!

Fall Fest

Germans seem to love any excuse for a party. So every village - no matter how small - seems to have a 'fest' for one thing or another several times a year. This was a 'Fall Fest' with craft booths, a corn maze, pumpkins, local wine, and lots of food! Tyler was in heaven! I was way excited about it though because I found some local grape juice! For some reason they seem to make nothing but wine with all those grapes and grape juice is kind of hard to come by. Why can't they do grape juice and cheese tasting along with their wine? I think I could get into that.

Soccer

Soccer was so much fun this year! Both kids LOVED it! Which means we didn't have to drag Sophie to practice in tears like we did last year! They also played great and were really fun to watch. The biggest thing we had to work on was toning down Brigg's celebration dances and nipping the trash talk!