Halloween Fun

So Halloween is not a big deal here in Australia.  Not everyone participates in trick-or-treating, the kids don't wear their costumes to school and there aren't any school Halloween parties.  Not to mention no pumpkin patches, haunted houses or any other plethora of Halloween festivals and carnivals to choose from like back home.  But despite it being difficult to celebrate it how we would have liked, we still managed to get some Halloween activities and fun in.

I kept seeing pumpkins at the store, hoping the price would drop the closer we got to Halloween and well, it dropped about 2 cents a kilo.  So I decided to go for it.  But when I weighed the first pumpkin, which was the smallest and it came to $13, I decided the kids could all share one pumpkin to carve.   One was certainly enough.

Will was quite impressed with the pumpkin.  After we bought it, he kept asking to cut it up so he could eat it.  I think he thought it was like a watermelon.  But after we cut it open, he was no longer interested in eating it.

 After we cut it open, Will kept saying, Bleh, gross!  Over and over, it was too cute.

 None of the kids would dare put their hands into the pumpkin and scrap out the seeds.  So it was all up to me!

 Finally, Lily worked up the courage to stick her hand in, after I had already gotten most of it.  Haha.

 Here is the finished product.  The girls told me how to carve everything on the pumpkin.  Thank goodness, it was nothing fancy.

 They wanted it to be scary looking, I think they succeeded.

 On Halloween, I talked the YM/YW into doing a Trunk-or-treat Halloween Carnival type thing for the primary kids.  It was a huge success.  Every one went all out with their "trunks" After I had suggested trunk or treat, I realized that they don't even call it a trunk, they call it the boot.  No wonder so many people were confused about the concept at first.  Haha!  

Anyways, the girls had costumes all picked out and then 2 days before Halloween they decided they needed to be something scary.  So they decided to revisit the witch and her black cat theme.  I think their costumes turned out well with only a few days notice, plus it was 100 degrees that day, so the purple and black stockings I got for the witch were definitely not wearable and I had the black cat in shorts.  It was just too hot!  We even swam before going to the Halloween party!  Will is supposed to be a pirate, but, of course, refused to wear his hat.  So he doesn't look like he is dressed up as much of anything.

 Will is throwing off his pirate hat in this pic.

 Here is the black cat and witch duo in 2013.

 And here they are in 2009.  Haha, so cute!

 This is our trunk, for the Trunk-or-treat.  Everyone was so impressed with our actual carved pumpkin.  All the young women said they wanted to do it for and activity next year.

 Here are all the other trunks or boots!  Everyone did super awesome!

 Here are some primary kids awesome costumes.

 You cannot tell me that that isn't the most adorable thing you have ever seen???  Love it!

 This is Dantae, one of our Young Women.  I think she gets the best costume award.  :)

 One of my favorite families in the ward, the Newman's.  Hayden, the husband, is the ward clerk, and there was a bishopric meeting after the Halloween carnival and I dared him to go in his costume and he did!!!  He was the only one!  Haha, I totally owe him some cookies or something!

 This is one of my personal favorites, Ava's friend, Jaslyn, dressed up as a broken wind up doll.  Adorable!  Isn't her mom so good at make up?

 Can't really tell but there is her wind up switch on her back.

 There's Sienna the puppy.  Her and Will have a love hate relationship.  They were best friends this night though.

 This is Cohen and Kye. They are school friends of Lily and Ava's.  Cohen is in Lily's class and Kye is in Ava's.  So my little missionary girls invited them to this church activity.  I think they had a good time and their mom was telling me that she had been to our chapel before with her cousins who were Mormons.  So I'm excited about this prospective missionary opportunity.  They really are an adorable family.

 Here are our sister missionaries dressed as nuns!  So funny!  I introduced them to Cohen and Kye's mom but I told them to take off their head pieces first.  I didn't want any confusion!

 Playing the games.  :)

 This is Chloe, in an amazing costume done by a very talented one of our young women, Heidi.

 Will and Sienna just loving the bobbing for oranges!

 They were probably so hot, and that was probably so refreshing.  I kind of wanted to go dunk my head in!

 One more decorated boot.

 I hadn't announced my pregnancy to the ward yet, so I decided to go as a bun in the oven, hoping that people would catch on.  I put my due date as the timer.  I think everyone just thought I was wearing a really lame costume when finally someone asked, are you trying to give your husband a hint?  And I said, no, I'm trying to make an announcement.  And after that the word spread.  :)  Should have went for something more obvious like the zombie baby breaking out.

After the trunk or treat the girls saw kids trick or treating around our neighborhood and really wanted to also.  So I thought why not, we'll give it a try.  We had some success, but it was a frustrating process because there was no way to know who was participating and who wasn't.  So if there was a light on at the house, we would knock and probably every 4th house we tried was giving out candy.  I was really wishing we were in America at that moment because all the kids were really enjoying trick-or-treating and just loving it.  Nobody was whining about having to walk so far and so on, and I just kept thinking, oh man,  they would have loved this back home this year.  But that's alright...maybe one day.  :)  They still got plenty of candy between the church party and our short stint trick-or-treating.

It turned out to be a pretty good holiday, even away from home.

Lastly, I had to document that even though it was 100 degrees, I still made and had the traditional chili that we always do on Halloween.  And it was delicious, since I didn't get to eat it until about 9 pm and by then the sun had been down and it had cooled off enough to enjoy it.  It was a great Halloween.