Trunk or Treat!

Halloween snuck up on us this year. The week before, it dawned on me that the kids and I had not talked about costumes. So, I asked them what they wanted to be this year all the while hoping whatever they picked wouldn't require a ton of work to be done in just a few days. The boys thought briefly about it and then blurted out, "football players" which led to the girls chiming in with, "cheerleaders." Yes! No work costumes! We already have all that gear! Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoy coming up with fun, unique, cheap costumes for the kids, but it seems that after 1 or 2 years of that, I need a break for a year and then we can go back to unique ones the next year.

Halloween morning we got out the pumpkins we had purchased earlier in the week at the DRI Pumpkin Patch and began to dig out seeds and carve to our hearts content. (We saved all the seeds and later made toasted pumpkin seeds. Yummy.) Three of my guys really enjoy getting their hands in the messy pumpkin. Trent does not. At all. Period. He also doesn't like the pumpkin seeds. The other three had a blast with the pumpkins and really enjoyed seeing a face and some words show up on the side of the orange gourds.

Instead of trick or treating, we go to our church's trunk or treat. It consists of church members decorating the trunks of their cars and then pulling them into a circle in the church parking lot so kids can go trunk to trunk asking for candy. In the middle of this large circle of vehicles are some booths set up with games, face painting, popcorn, etc. It is really a lot of fun and gives us a nice alternative to the traditional Halloween activities. It is also a good time to invite families from the neighborhood around the church to come on over and see what our church is like. We always have a good attendance and the kids love it. For being the end of October, we had very nice weather. In fact, no one asked for their coat until the very end. At that point we decided enough sugar had been consumed to last at least a month so we packed everyone into the car and headed home. Our little football players and cheerleaders were tired and ready for bed!