Return of the Jedi

Thanks to the brilliance and sewing talents of my sister Stephanie, Ryan and Coleman dressed up as Jedis and Olivia was a lovely Princess Leia for Halloween this year. I contemplated (very briefly) trying to pull off a pregnant Queen Amidala... but one look at her wardrobe and I decided to opt out of dressing up with the family theme this year...

In my defense, my t-shirt DOES say "Spooktacular" and I threw on a witch's hat so I'm not being too bah-humbuggy about Halloween :). We did some iron-on bags with Yoda and some kind of fighter ship to complete their look.

A few weeks ago we got together with Ryan's brothers and their families (thanks for hosting Tim and Laura!) for yummy chili and pumpkin carving. Ryan was a champ (like always) and de-gooped the pumpkins. Olivia and Coleman helped too, but Ryan was the one up to his elbows in slime. I was willing to help carve, as long as I didn't have to get too messy.

Coleman liked having a reason to wear the orange apron he got at Home Depot awhile ago...

...and Olivia liked digging in the pumpkin guts as much as anyone. Tim and Laura had the best pumpkin carving equipment... the scooper in this photo worked wonders.

Cute cousins and their pumpkins....

I must say (with all modesty) that the Yoda Olivia and I worked on turned out quite nicely.. the Imperial Tie Fighter (I just Googled it, I think that's what it is) that Coleman and Ryan worked on together looks great too!

The candles made them look so neat!

This is Ryan's X-Wing and although the photo is blurry the pumpkin was very cool.

Now, two weeks later, our poor pumpkins are wilted and moldy and you can hardly tell that they have anything to do with Star Wars... but that's okay. We lit the candles anyway (and I just watched a little boy almost catch his cape on fire from one of them... luckily it didn't!).

On a side note, I'm posting as I'm handing out candy to our cute neighborhood trick-or-treaters and I must say, I'm quite disappointed in the lack of "thank yous" that I have heard. Where has politeness gone? My kids BETTER be saying thank you at each house...

**What did you (or your family) dress up as this year?
**Did your trick-or-treaters say the magic words?