Halloween Part III: Spooks and Soup

From Into The Woods

My spooky baby Grace!!
I busted a gut when she did this.
Thanks Kelli for capturing the moment.

Grace with a little bit of the teeth showing.

Ya, the goob from the pumpkins was a little gross!!

Jaren eating the goop from his hands.

A view of all the kids in the garage.
I'm struggling with my camera right now, can you tell?

Beckham, he was a trooper and did his

ALL BY HIMSELF!!!

Hannah cutting the top off.



Annika going right at it!
She did awesome too!!




Jaren doing his best.
I had to help him a little.
He's always in such a hurry and does just what he has to.

I started a tradition last year of inviting everyone over for soup and trick or treating. It's hard pulling the kids away from their friends and the neighborhood. But the grandparents still want to see them in their costumes. So this was my solution. We also have a tradition of carving pumpkins with the Woods. This year we combined the two due to conflicting circumstances. I wanted to title our gathering something fun and came up with Spooks and Soup. I stole an idea from a sister in the ward and serve Chicken Tortilla soup to everyone. It's a huge hit. It's warm, it's filling and it's oh so delicious.

This year I did not want to gut 5 pumpkins on my own. In the past I did cause my kids were just too little. Well, I finally wisened up and had them to it themselves. I backed out the suburban, layed some newspaper down and let them have at it. It was a little chilly, so hands did get a little cold. Isabel brought all the drama to the party. First she cut her hand with the saw that is suppose to be the safest for kids. Go figure. Then her hands got too cold, then her pumpkin was just too big(mind you she insisted on the big one), and there was no way she could do this all on her own. Hannah decided that she would trade with poor Isabel. When everything was said and done and most pumpkins were packed up in the back of the suburban, I helped Isabel finish hers off. Oh the dramatics(there will be a posting about this very soon).

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of the end result. I am having some technical difficulty with my camera and with all the other activities of the day I was just to beat to try and fiddle with the darn thing. At least I have some pictures taken of the events.

Still more Halloween to come. This is what happens when it starts on a Wednesday and stretches to Saturday. Let's try and not do it like this again for a really long time. It's tiring.