Halloween (The Tale of the Fairy and the Commando)

This year, we continued a tradition of a year before..which meant inviting our little friends Nate and Melissa over to carve pumpkins. For those of you that might remember, Melissa was our flower girl when we were married 2 years ago with her brother cheering her on from the sidelines. The fairy and commando appeared under the escort of their mother and happily trick-or-treated Gwen. Next it was on to watching It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, which Anne had recorded earlier in the week. She was sure happy the kids were interested in the movie, since it looks a little weird for the die-hard Charlie Brown fan to sit alone as an adult and watch (she would have anyway). During the movie, we rustled up (and wrestled with) some popcorn balls. They were supposed to be orange for the holiday and eventually got that way.....but only after the balls were a stunning (and gory) bright red first, with nearly half of the yellow food coloring needed to counteract too much of a good color. Next up, we got to carving pumpkins. You'll notice that it was all excitement until we got to scooping out the insides; at that point, the kids decided that Eric and Nicole would do a much better job at the "gross" task. However, the kids returned to cut out the scary faces and test them out on the front deck. All in all, this was a highly satisfactory day at our house, especially when you consider that the only trick or treaters we'd usually get are lost hunters. :)