Vermont Relocation Vacation {10/31: Halloween with the Farrers}

We filled up Halloween with all the holiday fun it could hold! We started by playing with cars (of course) (and I love that Cohen woke up put on his Charmander costume first thing!) and moved into costume construction pretty early. Sam has been saying for months that he wants to be an organ pipe for Halloween. Yes. An organ pipe. He never changed his mind, so Gregg and I put our heads together and came up with an idea, which then was adapted on the fly as we wandered the aisles of the dollar store soaking up ideas. And it was a lucky thing, too, because gold wrapping paper-covered poster board turned out to be brilliant (and dirt cheap!). We worked and modeled and discussed and prepped and cut and wrapped and taped and voila! We had ourselves an honest to goodness organ pipe costume for our clever and creative and odd-ball son!

I mean, can you even handle it?!
(We were totally high fiving and hugging
after pulling that one off!)

After lunch, we got down to business with the Halloween fun. Bret busted out the sawzall to help carve pumpkins (some of which had be pre-carved by sneaky squirrels in the days leading up to today).

Sam didn't like the loud saw sound.

After jack-o-lanterns were finished, everyone got dressed up for a pic on the porch and the commencement of the Halloween Olympics, created, planned and executed by Melia (and Laurel). She came up with such fun activities for the rest of the afternoon: spider web maze in the hall, floor is lava, broom stick races (which turned into driveway hockey), candy hunt, musical bases, charades, and paper bag monsters. We finished up the party with a hangout with Grandpa and Grandma Blanchard so they could see some of the fun.

So fun to be with cousins for a party!
(Cohen was Charmander from Pokemon and Melia was
Professor Delores Umbridge from Harry Potter; Cal was
a librarian and Sam was an organ pipe.)

Sam was the youngest so he got to attempt
the spider web maze first.

He shimmied right under everything!

So Laurel and Gregg had to make a few
adjustments to get the bottom foot of space
a bit more technical.

Callie's turn!

Here comes Melia!

Taking turns hopping across the room
on various islands during The Floor is Lava!

Every time someone made it all the way across successfully,
they got to removed a spot. It got pretty tricky at the end!

Ready, set, race!

(The broomsticks were actually hockey
sticks!)

(Which made it really easy for the race to turn into a hockey
game on the driveway.)

When we got back inside, Laurel had hidden
bags of candy for the kids throughout the house.

Then it was time for musical bases.

Showing off paper bag monsters and balloons
to G and G on the computer.

After dinner we lit the pumpkins and watched half of The Cat from Outer Space before it was time for stories and bed. What a fabulous day of Halloween fun!

Time for a bedtime cuddle and story.
Oh, how I love them!

And this fun message from my dad
as we were wrapping up our evening.
(Craig Jessop, former conductor for the
Tabernacle Choir, is in his ward, so he
sent a picture of Sam as an organ pipe
to show him off.) I'm certain the tabernacle
organ pipes are what inspired Sam's costume
choice, so that was fun to be able to share it with
someone so closely acquainted with such things.