October - Halloween

 This year, Halloween fell on a Friday. So we took the day off from school and went to the Safari Park. It was perfect! We had been studying bats for the month of October and earlier in the month a baby bat was born in the Safari Park. So we went to the bat exhibit and tried to find her. We didn't see her, but the kids enjoyed watching all the bats and seeing how they interacted with each other. The exhibit was fruit bats so it was nice to discuss the different types of bats and how they are beneficial.

 The night before Halloween, we carved and decorated pumpkins. I love this time of year! The boys were SUPER excited because we allowed them to use the carving "knives" this year. Forbidden fruit. Lucy was jealous and it led to a few tears but they had to wait many years for knife privileges and she will too.

 Henry was completely grossed out by the pumpkin innards. But we told him that was part of being able to use the knife - you had to clean out your own pumpkin too.

 Lucy got to paint her pumpkin, which was a lot of fun!

 Their pumpkins turned out so cute!!

 Then they decorated their baby pumpkins. These turned out pretty cute too!

 Halloween night we got on the costumes, took a billion pictures and headed over to some friends to Trick-or-Treat with a big group of parents/kids. SO MUCH FUN!!  This year, Jonah wanted to be R2D2, so Dan did a fantastic job of making his entire costume. He was the cutest droid ever!

Henry kept asking to be a vampire or a black ghost. Our rule is nothing scary so both of those were out. (Who knows what a black ghost is anyway, but it sounds like something that would scare him at two in the morning.) So he decided to be a "Happy Pumpkin" - his words, not mine. I found this cute little pumpkin on sale and that was super easy!

Lucy didn't really get a say in what she wanted to be. I was between Dorothy and Anna from Frozen. But since I knew there would be about seventeen bazillion Annas, I decided on Dorothy. I'm so glad I did. She was SUPER cute!!! Look at that sweet smile! And bonus, she was so happy to get a "new" stuffed animal (Toto) that I found at a thrift store. Yay!

This is just a fraction of the kids that we went Trick-or-Treating with. It was a huge group and it was so much fun! Can't wait until next year!!