Our family Halloween fest

Our Halloween day was filled with fun. We went out to lunch with the McDonalds cards that Grandma Leslie, Papa and Matt had sent us. The girls got happy meals and ice cream. They loved that. Then we came home and decorated the front of the house for trick 'r treaters. As soon as Daddy got home we decided to carve our pumpkins that we got at the pumpkin patch. They all were simple but turned out cute enough to show off. The girls wanted to play with the pumpkin knives, but they didn't want anything to do with spooning the seeds out. That job was left to Mommy. Isn't it great to be a mom sometimes? After finishing our pumpkins and putting them on the front porch, we ate our Halloween pumpkin soup and quesadillas. It is Mommy's favorite fall soup. That was yummy!

Pumpkin and Black Bean Soup
Recipe courtesy Rachael Ray
2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan 1 medium onion, finely chopped 3 cups canned or packaged vegetable stock, found on soup aisle 1 can (14 1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes in juice 1 can (15 ounces) black beans, drained 2 cans (15 ounces) pumpkin puree (found often on the baking aisle) 1 cup heavy cream 1 tablespoon curry powder, 1 palm full 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1/2 palm full 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, eyeball it in the palm of your hand Coarse salt 20 blades fresh chives, chopped or snipped, for garnish
Heat a soup pot over medium heat. Add oil. When oil is hot, add onion. Saute onions 5 minutes. Add broth, tomatoes, black beans and pumpkin puree. Stir to combine ingredients and bring soup to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and stir in cream, curry, cumin, cayenne and salt, to taste. Simmer 5 minutes, adjust seasonings and serve garnished with chopped chives.

Finally, we got ourselves ready for trick 'r treating. The girls were really tired

but not too tired to go out for candy.

Here is Haley carving her first pumpkin...first one she got to carve that is.
Kayla leisurely spooning out one seed at a time.
Daddy finally gets it together and carves his pumpkin.
Haley found some bumble bee antenea from two

years ago and thought she had to wear them.
Funny thing is that she wore them right above

her eyes instead of on the top of her head.

Kayla, put that finger away!

"Let us pray."
"Am I growing horns yet?"

For some reason Kayla's head piece was larger than Keeleys and she couldn't keep it on. I am not sure if it was larger or she just had a smaller head. I had to tie it as tight as I could in order for it to stay on.


"MMM candy, I love candy." "I wonder if I will get any suckers."
My two sweet sheep. Can you get any more adorable than that?
"Like that little tail shake I just did?"
"Yah, that house was a sweet shop."
"Anyone here to give us candy?"
"My basket isn't full yet...we have to keep going."
There was this house with a really cute pumpkin carving. They had it like a window with a cat in one section, a spider in one and pumpkin in the other. The girls were quite impressed. However, Kayla just couldn't take her eye off that spider on the door. She is so afraid of spiders.

"Cheese Daddy."
"Mom, this hat is too tight now."

Mom's Club Halloween

There is always an annual Halloween party for the Mom's Club of Leeward Oahu that we are members of. They set up a nice party and the kids get to do crafts and play games and wear their costumes more than once. The girls got dressed up and went out for some fun.

Keeley would not let go of the blanket and Kayla just couldn't stop smiling.
They had this soft mat out for the kids to play on and the girls thought they could do their gymnastics on it. They were flipping around and jumping like it was the greatest thing they had ever seen in their lives. It was just a mat for heaven's sake.
"What you lookin' at mom?"

Don't sheep walk on all fours?
" Stop taking pictures mom."
Sheep on a slide.

They set up little houses and boxes for the kids to get candy out of. It was cute, but there was way too much candy.

Haley found a lady bug on the grass while loading up her bag with candy and had a good time showing it off to her little sisters. She was so proud of the bug she found.

Trunk 'r Treats

This is Haley and Keeley getting ready to go to the annual Church trunk 'r treat event. Haley decided she wanted to be Little Bo Peep and have the twins be sheep. This was a perfect choice because she loves to boss them around and tell them where to go. They were so adorable. They were so cute that they ended up winning first prize in the costume contest. Horray for the giant bucket 'o cheese balls. My girls are #1!
Kayla was unsure about the costume at first because the arms were a little long. She didn't like that her hands kept getting swallowed by the sleeves. She also didn't like the little cow bells I put on the costumes. She tore it off within seconds of putting it on.
This was how I decorated my trunk this year. I went with a haunted house witch theme. I thought it was cute and it took me forever to do. I put a lot of effort into it and I still didn't win best trunk. What am I gonna have to do to win best trunk? Next year I will make the entire van into a crawl through haunted house. Just kidding.

Kayla dug into the candy even before she was finished trunk 'r treating. Yum!
Keeley thought this looked like peepee so she made sure she stepped over it and not in it.



Haley was ready to go home and dig into all of the delicious treats!
We had lots of fun.

Haunted hayride

On Saturday the 27th, Aaron and I took Haley, along with some

friends of Aaron's to go on a haunted hayride up on the north shore.

It was at Gunstock Ranch and we heard it was going to be great,

so we just had to go check it out. Jason Hanley and his kids Oliver

and Elisha came as well as Mike and Mary Jo Silbernagle. We went

out to dinner in Haleiwa at Pizza Bob's and then headed out for a fright.

We had such a good time and we even got to watch a little Monster House

on the way home. Mary Jo really got into the movie! Fun night for everyone.

Haley's productive cleanup

Haley had dumped all of her toys out of their containers onto the floor.

I told her to go upstairs and pick up her room. She went, but after about

half an hour I thought to myself, "it is really quiet up there, I wonder

what she is really doing." However, I didn't even have to go upstairs

when she came trotting down the stairs with her hair full of clips...clips

that happened to be on her bedroom floor at the time. I couldn't get

mad that she didn't pick up her room, because in her eyes, she was

picking up...she just found another place to put things. So it wasn't a

total loss. Kids get the craziest ideas, yet very smart ideas.