Halloween Parties & Pumpkin Carving

Last Saturday was our ward Halloween Party (they called it the Fall Carnival - but as far as I'm concerned - call it what you want but what it is is a Halloween Party). Anyway, we had a fun time. I helped run the primary booth (musical chairs) for the first half hour. It was fun to get to play with the kids. While I did that Aubrey and Jeff decorated a treat bag. Aubrey loved doing that. She got to put stickers on her bag and color it. She was so proud of it - she carried it around with her the rest of the night. Then we had some food and did the games with Aubrey. Her favorite game was the bean bag toss. Of course with her, there was no tossing involved. But, she loved putting the bean bags in the holes and then going to the prize bowl and getting a plastic spider! I think we should have dressed her up as a spider - she really likes them! I didn't bring my camera - but got a few pics from my friend Rachel.

Aubrey really liked Zoe's bear costume. She is pointing out the bee on it.

Monday night, was Jeff's work Halloween party. They had pumpkin carving & games & food. We had a really good time. We decided it might be too intense to try to carve the pumpkin there so we brought it home to carve. Aubrey really enjoyed the games at this party and running around the halls in her costume.

Making another treat bag - fun times for Aubrey

Loving the bean bag toss here as well!

Hooray for me - I got the bean bags in the mouth!

I took her around the cake walk - and she thought it was great fun.

Later in the night we were walking past the cake walk and she ran right in and did it herself!

Pinning the nose on the witch with daddy.

She had to help stroll the stroller w/ the pumpkin in it all the way to the car!

Tonight we carved Aubrey's Jack-O-Lantern. Right before we started I thought it would be fun to make it look like Aubrey. So I cropped a forward facing picture of Aubrey right on her face. Printed it to fit the 8.5 x 11 size paper and then traced her features. Then we used it as the template to carve the pumpkin. I decided the pumpkin version of Aubrey is definitely not as cute as the real deal, but it still turned out pretty cute.

Aubrey loved the whole experience. She helped clean it out. She helped poke the design onto the pumpkin. Then as I was carving she sat on my lap the whole time and continued poking with the poker. Then she had fun watching it all lit up in the dark. It was a real fun activity for all of us!

Cleaning out the guts!

This picture totally cracks me up. She was cleaning out the guts with dad and got some of it on her. She immediately withdrew her hands and started showing me that the guts got on it. She thought it was really yucky. Then when they were done cleaning it out - she started signing water. We went to the sink to get her sippy cup, but what she wanted was to wash her hands and arms because of the slim. A girl after my own heart - I absolutely hate cleaning out the pumpkin guts!

Poking out the Aubrey face design.

Poking away while mommy carves!

It's sooo much fun to carve pumpkins!

We're all done and she is still poking away at it!

What do you think - any resemblance to Aubrey?

The whole family!

The last couple of years we decided to carve the fake pumpkins because less mess and they last for years to come. So here are all of our pumpkin creations over the last few years.

Gotta have a cute one amongst all of the spooky ones!