Halloween in Texas

Life is always an adventure living in a new place. Halloween is a different holiday here.

First - No planning costumes around winter coats. It is warm! People sit outside to hand out candy. Even after dark it is warm enough to walk around in a T-shirt.

Second - No planning costumes around school work. There were no costumes worn at school. I've heard teachers say there is no learning that takes place when kids wear costumes. Here it was just another day of education. Vanesssa was even doing ITBS testing. She did tell me that she counted 22 girls with pumpkin shirts. Turns out since the kids can't wear costumes to school, they wear Halloween themed t-shirts. Good to know for next year.

Third- What to expect? I called my next door neighbor to see how many trick-or-treaters to expect on our street. Not that many. We live on a cul-de-sac just inside our neighborhood. Most people skip past our street and head straight for the rows and rows of houses nearby.

Since we knew the number of trick-or-treaters would be few, Aaron opted to hand out full sized candy bars. He takes the "everything-is-bigger-in-Texas" to heart.

The neighbors were giving him a heard time about being "that guy" they have to compete with. He teased them that next year we're handing out ice cream cones. Yep, he's "that guy".

This year Savanah wanted to be a bubble bath. It was a fun costume to put together.

On the night of Halloween, I needed to go to Ethan's last football game so Savanah took the package of balloons next door and my sweet neighbor blew up the balloons for her. That's what they mean when they say, it takes a village.

For the trunk-or-treat last Friday Vanessa was a shadow. Complete with face paint that she did her self - as she has done in the past - click here.

You have to love my girls who are so black and white opposite of each other. Literally.

Since, she had to explain her costume to so many people last week, she woke up Halloween morning and said she wanted to be a pirate. We already have an eye-patch (see previous post). Target was sold out of any costume that even closely resembled a pirate. After school, I took her to Walmart and showed her the limited selection. In the end, she was a witch.

Ethan dressed up as a football player. He went as far as playing an actual game so that he would have the sweat and scrapes to make it more authentic.

Other than that, my boys did not want to dress up at all. Two words:  PARTY POOPERS!!!

Este stayed home to hand out candy. I thought about having him put the candy bars in the butter churn instead of a bowl, but I was worried somebody might steal it.

This year I went all out on the Halloween decorations. Ok...not by most people's standards but since I hurriedly places some random decorations out on Halloween morning last year, anything is an improvement.

I got the idea to tie tule around the porch light from Pinterest. Here is that photo.

Here is my porch light. Since they didn't give the instructions on how to tie a beautiful bow, this was my version. I'll say it... pathetic.

Savanah added a decoration to the front porch. Lovely.

I bought some pumpkins - totally fake.

Now I can't find real pumpkins to make some much needed puree. Another thing to know for next year - buy pumpkins early or they will be gone.

I placed my pumpkins and added a scary spider to my front porch then noticed I had place them in the same places on my house as my neighbor had the same items placed on her house weeks before. I did some rearranging to make it a little less obvious that I was totally copying her. I will admit it looked as nice as when I copy things from Pinterest... pathetic but, it's better than nothing.

The girls colored some window clings. That faded in the sunshine. Lovely.

I made some Frankenstein pudding cups that the kids enjoyed after school.

We had Mummy Dogs for dinner but by that point I was rushing out the door to the football game so there are no photos since they were all eaten by the time I returned home.

This morning I remembered the special pencils I bought to give to the girls on Halloween. Nice. One more thing to do next year.

There you have it. The summary of our first Halloween back in Texas. Next year will be even bigger and better. As they say here, Go big or go home....we're just getting started.