Calvin and Tigers and Cowboys, Oh My!

If you asked James at any point in October what he wanted to be for Halloween, he'd reply a zombie. "What does a zombie look like?" was my follow up question. "I don't know," he'd say. I waited until the day of our ward's trunk or treat to pull out the tote of Halloween costumes and whatever he would put on, he would be. 

He saw the spurs and the cowboy hat and he was hooked. I was happy the vest I made was going to be worn again (Henry and Erica never used it).

If he couldn't get any cuter....

(As a sidenote and since I refer to this blog to settle arguments about how things went down in year's past, this was also the day before Sarah's birthday and the same day we went out for breakfast. Justin ground elk into burger, Erica went to a friend's birthday party.)

I like when we have an occasion to wear our costumes before Halloween. It's like a dress rehearsal and we discover things like James's boots were too big so he needed extra socks to help them stay on. Sarah's dress needed 1 button and a button loop sewn back on and the hem taken down (she's grown a lot this last year). Plus we get more use out of these costumes that take time and effort to put together.

After the chili cook-off dinner, we headed outside. Sarah and Henry didn't want to wait for the littles so I don't have any pictures of them. Justin stayed with the car and handed out treats. We went through our entire huge Costco bag of candy. There were so many cars this year. It was great.

My kids dumped out all their candy on the table when we get home to sort and trade. I remember doing the same thing as a kid. And since I can never get them all looking at the camera at the same time, here is a series of photos.

 Henry is pointing to his new gap where he lost a tooth that afternoon. Erica bonked his loose tooth to where it would hit his bottom tooth in a painful way that made it impossible to eat. He didn't eat dinner the previous night nor breakfast or lunch this day. He was pretty hungry and upset (we made him a smoothie and showed him how to eat eggs without chewing but he's stubborn). He cried for 2 hours that afternoon and wore down our patience. I told him he either needed to let me pull it out or go whine about it in his room. He chose to stand there and whine and cry to me some more. He got it pretty loose but just wouldn't pull it out. I told him to let me do it (I pull out most of the teeth around here for some reason) and he asked me if it would hurt.

"Yes, but not as bad as it's hurting right now and then the pain will go away pretty quickly."
"NO!" he cried.
"Just let me pull it out already! I can do it in less than 5 seconds and then you can go eat steak!"
"Is it going to hurt?" he asked again.
"No," I lied. "It's not going to hurt."
"Okay" he said and sat on the couch.
Why he needed to be lied to, I have no idea. He knew I was lying but for some reason that was comforting. This kid.
I told him I would get a firm grip before I tugged "so give me a sec before you start count--{yank}. All done!"
His tongue and hand went immediately to his mouth and he was so relieved and didn't even care to see that bugger of a tooth.
I think I've pulled 12 of the 15 teeth between Sarah and Henry. I don't know why they hate pulling their own out or why I don't mind doing it.

Alrighty, back to Halloween. Sunday was Sarah's birthday, yadda yadda yadda, I wasn't feeling well on Monday and Justin had YM on Tuesday, yadda yadda. Wednesday. Wednesday we carved pumpkins.

James was so excited to "get all the seeds out and put a candle in it and it will be a jack-o-lantern!" He scooped his seeds out one at a time.

 Sarah did a great job cleaning hers out all by herself but decided she doesn't like carving pumpkins and will paint hers next year.

 Erica doesn't like gross things. Justin pretty much did all of hers.

 In a turnabout from years past, Henry is all about carving pumpkins now. He didn't think it was gross and got really into carving it. New rule: you must pick a pumpkin you can carry. Henry whined about the weight of his pumpkin and whined for help.

 James wanted a spooky pumpkin with sharp teeth.

 Gosh he's cute. He just loved all of this.

Erica wanted sharp teeth like James's but upside-down triangles for nose and eyes.

Henry wanted his just like James's but once I finished helping him carve the eyes and mouth, things went down hill from there.

"I'm watching you"

He carved and stabbed and poked this thing all evening and the next day and every day until I made him throw it away.

 The knife migrated around....

And there were more holes, bigger holes, and more slits as time went on. He wouldn't leave it alone.

Sarah, ever the traditionalist.

 This is actual Halloween before we went trick or treating.

A purple witch.

 Calvin (sans Hobbes).

 The cutest darn cowboy I ever did see.

 And the return of Princess Buttercup.

We couldn't stay out our own house this year because we gave out all our candy at the trunk-or-treat. We took the kids to my sister's neighborhood in Springville so we could trick or treat with my nephew Mason. He had the funniest costume.

 It was so cold but my kids love candy so we kept going, rosy cheeks and frozen fingers and all.

Somewhere along the way, James scored this king-sized Kit Kat. No one else in our group got one so I guess someone else agreed that he was the cutest.

 And then we came home. Sarah and Erica went around our neighborhood for another 40 minutes. The boys came inside, got warm and passed out candy they didn't want to the last trick-or-treaters.

I took down all the decorations by 9 am the next morning.