Halloween Festivities

We had two rounds of pumpkin carving this year. We carved pumpkins for our date friday night. We drove over to the wonderful Days Market and picked out our pumpkins for 12 cents a pound. Grandma didn't want to carve one herself so I carved one for her. She choose the monkey face pattern, Ja choose the haunted house and I choose the ghost. I was pretty impressed with the Ja's haunted house because it was really detailed. 

After we placed the pumpkins outside and lit them, Ja noticed the empty flower bed next to the door. His imagination got a hold of him because he then wanted to make a whole Halloween scene in the dirt. The next day we made our stuffed man and found him a seat so he could watch all the trick-or-treaters. We then made tombstones out of cardboard and foil. Thanks to the Haunted Mansion we wrote some funny sayings on them. 

"Here lies Fred, a big ol' rock fell on his head." "Here lies headless, footless Joe. How he died we do not know." "Here rests Wathel R. Bender, he rode to glory on a fender." "In memoriam Uncle Myall, here you'll lie for quite a while." 

Then for family home evening we carved three more pumpkins. Ja cleaned them out and I carved them. It was pretty quick process. We bought a pumpkin carving kit that has glue to put on the pumpkin so you can glue the pattern, carve it, then peel it off. It was much nicer than poking holes then carving the pumpkin. We got a kick out of our little scene. On Halloween we downloaded a scary Halloween song and played it from our ipod out the window to scare people. 

We had great fun on Halloween night thanks to James. We had some friends come over to watch a scary movie. Our friend James came as a vampire and his costume was so good we couldn't let him go to waste. While we waited for another couple to come, we had James sit outside and hold a bowl of candy. We patiently waited for unassuming trick-or-treaters to come and think James was a dummy. One group stopped and discussed him being real or not. One girl was a little skeptical so she slowly reached her hand into the bowl. As soon as she grabbed the candy James yelled "Boo!" She screamed and jumped back. Ja, Amy (James' wife), and I watched from across the street. When our friends Joe and Rozaura arrived we had them walk to the front door so they could get some candy. Rozaura thought it was a great dummy and looked really close at James. Right then he yelled "boo" and she screamed for about 10 seconds all the while stomping her feet on the ground. It was so funny and made Halloween worth it. We didn't have too many trick-or-treaters come by, but we had fun with the ones who did.

The Vampire, the girl he bit, Ali G, a flower, and the bee who pollenated the flower.

Ali G and the vampire/zombie.