Happy Halloween

Our decorations.

We made eyeballs out of balloons and placed them on posts.

The tombstones speak for themselves...The whole Family. We sure are a sight.RedzillaLeyton. AKA: Thomas the TrainDennis in his costume.

He was very convincing. People would walk past him thinking he was fake.

By the time they realized he wasn't fake, they were mid-heart attack. 80's party girl. Hey, it was free.Our neighbor, Paul. Bad Easter Bunny

You can see the crowd that formed around our house watching the show.

These girls were obviously just scared by Dennis.Redding snuggling with Paul. He was a tired Redzilla.We have the best neighborhood for Halloween. Our neighbors set up cemeteries and cornfields in their yards and the trick-or-treaters arrive in very large crowds. It is hard to estimate but I would guess that we had at LEAST 500 (yes, five HUNDRED) trick-or-treaters. Of course, this is not counting the ones that may have walked on by due to the scary Jack In The Box that was located near the candy (see pictures). Oh yes, we scared MANY children...and had fun doing it!

Scared yet?

Leyton and I made some very SCARY cupcakes for Halloween.

They were all his designs.

Nice job, Leyton!

The finished pumpkin product

TA-DA!

Eventually, this pumpkin had fake snakes crawling through its head.

Nice.

Compliments of Dennis.Leyton's pumpkin.

It's Thomas the Train, of course. Thomas is the #1 Engine!

Mommy's pumpkin

Redding's "Love Struck" pumpkin. Carved by Mommy!

Pumpkin Sculpting

Dennis and his galleryPro Pumpkin carverMommy, what are you doing?Helping Ms. SarahEww, yuck!Scraping his pumpkinHelping with the "guts"Hey, you're not carving pumpkins!Pumpkin carving is one of my favorite things about Halloween. This year we were joined by the Landi Family for an even more enjoyable experience. Sarah is an expert pumpkin carver. I think she carved six pumpkins in the time it took me to carve one!

Leyton and Redding mostly ran around like crazy people (nothing new) the whole time and screamed "eww" at the pumpkin "guts". Usually screaming at the pumpkins guts while holding a live worm. Go figure.

Pumpkin Picking at Stew Leonards

We usually visit a really nice orchard for pumpkin and apple picking around Halloween time. This year, we decided to keep it simple and just go to Stew Leonard's! I have to say that we had a great time. They had a maze made from bales of hay and hundreds of pumpkins. Oh, and let's not forget the goodies inside the store!

If one could survive on jalapenos alone...

Here, have some! Our very cute and tasty carrots This is about 1/4 of the jalapenos that we got!

How much guacamole can one family eat?Our garden is done. We did pretty well though we did not get as many cucumbers as I would like to have gotten. We, on the other hand, had so many jalapenos that I still do not know what to do with them. My carrots were very cute, nothing like what you see in the store. Same went with the broccoli, we harvested many small florets that were very tasty, but very small.

While we were away on vacation some of the broccoli went to flower (which makes for very bitter broccoli. Always harvest before any sign of going to flower). The flowers are very small, cute, and yellow AND they also attract butterflies galore! So, we left them. We are enjoying the butterflies and the occasional bumblebee.

Broccoli will definitely be a constant in our future gardens. Jalapenos will be there as well. Except next year, only one plant will be necessary.

Reddings New Favorite Place

That Dr. Seuss is SO funny!

Redding loves to sit in the window of his and Leyton's room. He will read a book there, yell at people and/or cats passing by from there, and hide there. He would probably eat dinner there if we would let him.

The other morning we had a little excitement on our block (still not exactly sure what occurred but there were about 5 fire trucks on our block) and Redding was able to watch from his favorite spot as all the excitement was occurring. And he read a book too. Multi-tasking at it's finest.

Fire Shoes

So, it happened. We have fallen victim to gimmicky television advertising. Leyton convinced us after seeing these shoes on a commercial that he NEEDED these shoes. His life would end if he did not get them (well, one would think). For weeks, maybe even months, he has been asking for "Fire Shoes". He needed "faster shoes" and that his old ones were too slow. We gave in. How could you not? Look how happy he is...

Showing the shoes off

You can almost see how they light up. They are pretty cool actually. This is one of MANY pictures he make me take of his shoes. Ah, it is the little things in life.

Well, I guess I get a little giddy when I get a new pair of shoes too...