Sunday, October 31, 2010

Halloween 2010

We started out our Halloween celebrations a few weeks ago with our yearly pumpkin carving with Ryan's family at Tim's and Laura's house. The kids wore their costumes too! This year our kids were bugs--Liv was a bee, Coleman was a spider, and Sophia was a beautiful butterfly.  Ryan and I were exterminators :).

Laura did so much work preparing so many yummy treats... be sure to click on the collages so you can see the details of the creative way she presented all of her delicious, festive foods.   (Laura took all these pictures and created the great collages!)




 We had a great time with everyone!

Olivia and Coleman spent an fun evening with my brother David and his wife Katty and they carved another pumpkin... Liv did Tinkerbell and Coleman made a three-eyed alien.  The apple? That's mine :).


On Friday Ryan's company invited family members to come in and trick-or-treat at different desks. They had this fun spooky house backdrop for a photo booth and Ryan took photos.


Ryan designed and printed a great new costume (I guess he thought the exterminator costumes were a little lame?)... He was his own Facebook page! He was good enough to put an ad for Harper Extermination on the right side of his page :). He won first prize for the best costume at work.
 Saturday morning Olivia's soccer team had a Halloween scrimmage...

...It was so funny to see the kids playing in their costumes. They had a great time.

Saturday night Ryan took the Coleman and Olivia trick-or-treating--even though it was raining hard and was freezing cold!  He's such a trooper. The saddest part of it all was that he didn't get to wear his great costume because it would have gotten ruined.


Coleman, the scary spider...

...who has been leaving plastic spiders all over the house all weekend trying to scare me. It usually works too, I hate spiders!
Olivia, the sweet honey bee.

Our Sophia butterfly.

I was still an exterminator and even put plastic spiders in my hair. Soph and I stayed home and passed out treats to the few that braved the rain. We had lots of candy and mini card games left over! (I threatened Ryan that I was going to hand out string cheese instead of candy, but he would have none of that...  I just read a friend's facebook status and she said her neighbor's got creative and passed out things like fruit leather, water bottles, notebooks, pencils, etc. I'm going to mull that over for next year...)

**What were you and yours for Halloween?
**Do you think kids would dig a different "treat" or is it all about the candy?

10 comments:

Zumba with Katty said...

what a fun Halloween for you guys! :) LOVED the costumes! y se paso el Ryan con su disfraz de Facebook page!! demasiado bueno!! jajaja se lo tendre que mostrar a mi familia ;)

Kristi said...

You guys are so cute! I love the theme!! Ryan's costume is amazing. No wonder he won 1st place.

We ended up handing out Halloween fruit snacks and bouncy balls this year. I must say, the bouncy balls were a big hit! Just stay away from apples...I always hated getting those. :)

Mollie said...

Love Ryan's costume. That is great!

Kelly Lund and Kids said...

Great costumes!! Looks like everyone had fun... I just laughed my head off seeing Ryan's Costume!! That is the BEST!!! I love it... how original... I have to text Erin to check it out :) Thanks for sharing :)
~Kelly

The Scherbel Family said...

Looks like a fun holiday, despite the rain. I love the family theme costume. Boo to Ryan for not being an exterminator.

We give out non-food treats every year. I've tried about 8 different items. The big winners are those silly plastic fangs and small bottles of bubbles. They even beat out the glow sticks this year. Pencils and erasers are not popular at all. I've given out less than 15 of each in two years. At my husband's work this year someone was giving out fruit snacks and the kids were actually hunting her down. That was one desk they didn't want to miss.

RyanH said...

In my defense... I was an exterminator for the family party! :)

Lauren said...

LOVE the costumes! Hey, I'd be happy if Chad dressed up as ANYTHING - he is a big Halloween Scrooge. But Ryan definitely has creative genius. Sadly, I think for most kids it is all about the candy (wasn't it for us when we were growing up?) However, a couple years ago I passed out Rice Krispy treats (bought at Costco with a coupon the month before, so pretty reasonably priced, even getting 3 boxes) and they are individually wrapped and a tiny bit healthier than a candy bar. I know, a very tiny bit... but the kids loved them. They were something different, still a goody, and bigger than all the candy items! I heard another fun idea today - boxes of crayons bought for 10 cents each at a good back-to-school sale. But I think the bouncy balls would be more fun. One year I got some from Oriental Trading Co. and they had gross things like eyeballs and bugs in them, which the boys thought were awesome. That company has some great Halloween stuff - you should check it out!! Wish we could come trick-or-treating to your house sometime :o)

Lauren said...

P.S. I love your kids' treat bags too. You put us other moms to shame :o) If you want to do non-food items next year, you should check out the after-Halloween clearance sales right now. Last year I got bags of small cans of play-doh (with 18 cans in each bag) for $1.50! I saved them for the girls' Christmas stockings. You never know what you'll find!

Sally said...

My neighbor hands out PlayDoh and my kids love it. Amen to the anti-candy movement. We didn't trick or treat this year because we were in Disneyland, and I didn't miss it a bit. Not even once.
By the way, thank you for gifting me one of your fabulous apples. I felt indulged and spoiled, and what a nice surprise. You sweet friend. :)

Janene said...

what fun! I think all holidays must be better at your house. :o)

And that Facebook page. Too clever!