Halloween 2020

For the first time ever, the kids and I set out alone to go trick-or-treating this evening and left Ron at home.  Due to Covid-19, several houses in our neighborhood came up with safe and creative ways to hand out candy and Ron decided that he wanted to participate in this.  After spending most of the afternoon working on building and decorating a chute to send candy down through a cow skull's head at the bottom, he decided that he wanted to stay home and answer the door the entire evening instead of just part of the evening which we have always done in year's past after getting home from knocking doors.  So, after a few quick photos in front of our house, the kids and I set out for 1.5 hours.  With the exception of arguing over which houses were closed or not (due to several people leaving on their porch and house lights when they were not answering their door to trick-or-treaters), the five of us had a great time walking around our neighborhood together.  Since we had a beautiful, sunny day, the weather was perfect for being outside at night and we didn't have to bundle up under heavy jackets or hide under umbrellas.  In addition, we got the biggest kick out of the clever and creative ways that many people handed out their candy and were blown away by the amount of candy that the kids acquired by the end of our evening walking around.  Emmett also was as happy as a clam the entire time being pushed around in his stroller and was kept satisfied by some M&Ms being put in his tray a little at a time.  

After returning home, we had a great time doing what we always do every year which included going through the candy, running to answer the door, and watching the Disney's animated classic of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  Although about 50% of the homes in our neighborhood were closed to trick-or-treaters, I was just so grateful that so many people had decided to answer the doors and pass out candy so that our children could participate in this fun, holiday tradition.  

The Hartland kids all dressed up and ready to go in their Peter Pan-themed costumes!

Our baby Emmett dressed up as the crocodile with the ticking tail.

Ella dressed up as Tinkerbell.  I must say that she looked adorable running from house to house with her wings flapping and the bells on her shoes ringing.

Logan dressed up as Captain Hook complete with his awesome hat with the large, white feather on top.

Although her sweater covered up most of the top part of her dress, Lia was a darling Wendy Darling.

The kids and I heading out of our driveway.

I insisted that the kids all wear face masks and gloves as we went from house to house.  Here is Ella stopping for a picture before walking up to our next door neighbor's door.

The kids posing in front of Donna's awesome pumpkin scarecrow that she puts up every year.

The kids posing in front of Donna's door where she had put a large bale of hay with candies taped to skewer sticks poking out of the top.  Since she is 89 years old, Donna wanted to come up with a creative way to pass out candy to all of the children who came to her door without coming in contact with them.  I though that this was such a great idea!

The kids posing in front of another one of our favorite doors every year.  Although you can't see it in the picture, they had little bags of candy hanging from glowing bracelets that were attached to a large spider web that was left of the door.  It looked so cute and was also such a great way to hand out candy in a contact-free way!

Lia picking up candy that came through the chute of a ghost's mouth.

One of our friends up the hill attached their leaf blower to a pipe that came out of the mouth of a pumpkin that they had painted on a board.  After the kids stepped on a button that was attached to an extension cord that turned on the blower, the candies came flying out of the pumpkin mouth.  It was so clever and fun to watch until Ella got hit smack dab in the middle of her forehead with a flying piece of candy!  The poor thing melted into a crying ball right there on the driveway.  Luckily, she was able to hide behind our stroller until she recovered from the pain.

The kids picking up their candy from a little train car that a neighbor pulled up and down a ramp on piece of rope.  This was probably the best idea we saw all night long!

The kids picking up candy being sent down another giant chute decorated in large skeletons.

Our Covid-Free Halloween Party

 After realizing that all Halloween parties, carnivals, and activities would not be happening this year due to all of the restrictions that are still being forced upon us thanks to Covid-19 and the strict state that we live in, I decided to do something about it.  It made me sad to think that our children would not be able to attend any Halloween function outside of trick-or-treating around our neighborhood and would not have the opportunity to wear their adorable and coordinated, Peter Pan costumes more than one time.  As a result, I decided to break the rules and have a Halloween party at our house on the eve of Halloween.  Since we have been frozen in Phase 2 since the summer, we still are technically not allowed to have gatherings at our house with more than five people outside the people with whom we live.  But since I am so tired of all of these Covid restrictions and tired of the fact that so many other states in our country (whose numbers are way worse than ours) are now being allowed to do so many things that we are not allowed to do, I just decided to break the rules and do what I wanted for once!

After running this idea past Ron, I invited a few families who I knew would be on board with this idea to come to our house for a costume party complete with a potluck dinner and some Halloween games for the children.  Luckily, four families said 'yes' to coming and the planning began.  Since I knew that I would have limited time to plan and prepare for this party since so much of my day is now taken up with homeschooling three kids with a one-year old in tow, I decided to make things as easy as possible.  I reused a ton of Lia's Harry Potter birthday party decorations with just a change in the color theme.  I also came up with six different activities and games to play by recycling old birthday party games with a Halloween twist.  After getting the kids' help putting up the decorations on Friday afternoon and making a stew for dinner and a pumpkin cake for dessert, I had enough time to get all of the children dressed in their costumes before the guests started arriving at 6 p.m. 

Overall, the party was a total success and we had a great time.  All the kids came dressed up in their costumes and everyone brought delicious dishes to share.  We enjoyed a wonderful potluck dinner and then Ron and I led all of the kids in several games afterwards to give them something to do and to prevent them running wild through our house for over an hour since going outside is no longer an option with the weather.  After the games, we ate desserts and hung out for awhile talking before everyone left around 9 p.m. so that we could put a very tired Emmett to bed.  

One of the tables in the kitchen decorated with a cauldron, candle holders, confetti, and sparkly spiders from Lia's Harry Potter party with the Halloween colors of black, orange, and purple.

A shot of the two kitchen tables together complete with the balloons in the air.

A close-up of the other table all decorated.

The decorations at the entrance of our house complete with a sign done by Logan.

Just like with all of our children's birthday parties, I had a table set up with Halloween coloring pages and crafts for the children to do while waiting for dinner to be served.  This turned out to be the perfect activity to keep them entertained since we didn't end up starting dinner until 6:45 p.m.

Three of the four families we invited have girls who are good friends with Lia.  Although they are much older and mature than the rest of the children, they were all good sports and participated in all of the games after dinner.  Here is Lia posing with Mollie, Rian, and Elle at the foot of our stairs at the beginning of the party.

We managed to get a family photo taken before dinner started.  All four kids are dressed in their Peter Pan-themed costumes and I wore my old Elsa costume that I wore five years ago when Lia and I went to Disneyland at Halloween time.  Ron opted not to wear a costume and just told everyone that he was a burned-out, football player.

A cute picture I got of several of the girls hanging out on the stairs while we were taking some family pictures in the living room.

The group photo I managed to take of all 12 children dressed in their costumes.

And, of course, we had to have a silly picture next!

The children enjoying dinner at the kids' table.

Although I only took pictures during two of the five games, here is a picture of Lia passing the "hot pumpkin" to Mollie.  In addition to this game, we played "keep the ghosts up in the air" (using white balloons), drop the spider in the jar, pin the trunk on the pumpkin, and "Hide the little ghost."  All of the kids really got into the games and seemed to enjoy themselves which I was grateful for as I just didn't want twelve children running wild in my house all evening long.

The kids waiting their turn in line to pin the stem on the pumpkin.

Spinning Elle around.

Rian pinning her stem on the pumpkin.

Lia and Rian posing for the camera.

Carving & Painting Pumpkins!

After picking out our pumpkins last week, we found the time this evening to gather around our kitchen table to carve and paint our pumpkins.  Everyone decided to do their own thing and we all had a great time working away on our pumpkin projects for about an hour while Emmett cruised around and checked out everything.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that he wasn't climbing on the table or getting into the bowls of pumpkin guts the entire time.  He mainly stood on a chair and watched Ron carve out his pumpkin for the majority of the the time.  Ron carved and painted a scary face while I carved and decorated a gypsy face on my pumpkin.  Lia opted to just paint her pumpkin with a face mask on in keeping with the Covid theme that is still ruling our lives in so many ways.  With our help, Logan carved a grim reaper shape and Ella carved a face made out of stars and moons on her pumpkin.  We had fun lighting them all up and turning off the lights to check them out in the dark before bringing them out the porch and heading to bed.

Emmett standing next to daddy watching him work.

Since Logan chose the largest pumpkin out of all of us, he had the most guts to scoop out, but he was a trooper and kept on going until his pumpkin was cleaned out on the inside.

Emmy giving me a smile while standing on his favorite, white chair.

Ella posing with her baby brother.

The kids all lined up in front of our five, finished pumpkins.

A close-up of Emmett all ready for bed with his beloved ya-ya in his mouth.

My gypsy pumpkin next to Logan's pumpkin with a grim reaper on it.

Ron's scary pumpkin, Ella's adorable pumpkin with star-shaped eyes and moon-shaped ears, and Lia's "masked-up" pumpkin.

Our family of pumpkins all lit up and glowing in the dark.

Annual Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

After going to the same pumpkin patch in Sumner for the past ten years, we decided to try something different and check out the new pumpkin patch that two of my friends recommended called Knutson Farm located in the same town.  This farm came highly recommended because all of the things that are usually an extra charge at pumpkin patches were free including activities like the corn maze and the hay ride.  After talking it over with Ron, he agreed to try it out and off we went this morning on a dry Saturday after a very stormy week full of rain and wind.  We all had a great time and the kids and us really enjoyed exploring both the corn and hay maze, going on the hay ride, looking at the farm animals, and picking out our pumpkins.  I think we had the most fun watching Emmett enjoy all of these activities for the "first time" since he has no memory of doing any of this a year ago.  Although so many things are cancelled this Halloween season, it just felt so great to be able to participate in a traditional, holiday activity that wasn't cancelled due to Covid-19.

A family photo we had taken at the entrance of the farm.

The four, Hartland kiddos.

A picture of the "This Way to the Fun" banner which hung over the entrance to the farm.

We first checked out the hay maze and had a great time following Emmett through the entire thing (with Logan and Ella way ahead of us).

At one point in the maze, there was this cute, little "window" made between some stacked bales of hay.  Emmett was able to look at Ella through the window and got a huge kick out of it!

Ella and Logan looking at us with the "window" in between them.

Logan and Ella in the lead.

Another family photo we had taken of us at the exit of the corn maze.

We had a great time exploring the corn maze until Ella got separated from us on our way out.  Luckily, we were able to find her after a few stressful minutes by screaming her name over and over again.  Before that happened though, Emmett had a great time chasing after his three, older siblings as they ran ahead of the rest of us.

A cool picture I was able to get of all four kids standing in between some corn stalks.

The goal of the corn maze was to find an old fashioned, green truck parked somewhere in the center.  Without trying very hard, we actually stumbled across it.  Here is the gang standing in the back of the truck bed surrounded by corn stalks.

After the corn maze, we got in line to go on the hay ride.  We enjoyed a leisurely ride around the farm on a large, truck bed pulled by a farm tractor.

As you can imagine, Emmett was fascinated by the entire ride.  He sat in Lia's lap and loved it!

There was a large display full of old farm equipment that we enjoyed checking out.  Here are the kids standing in front of an old tractor.

We then strolled through the barn and looked at all of the darling, farm animals including some baby goats, pigs, and chicks.

We found the duck races that the kids always love playing with at the other pumpkin patch where we normally go.  Here are Ella and Logan pumping away.  Although I didn't get a picture of it, Emmett was fascinated by the entire thing and kept on trying to steal the ducks as they raced down the gutters.

Emmett enjoyed being pushed around in our wheelbarrow as it got full of pumpkins.  He was a good sport and rode around in it until we had to take him out in order to weigh the pumpkins.  Here is a picture of our own cute pumpkin sitting with all of the other pumpkins!