Halloween Parties and Pumpkins

I have officially lost the Halloween costume battle.  In the past, Palmer had (or was steered towards!) creative costume ideas.

This year, I thought I had a ringer: Grace could be an Olympic gymnast...

...and Palmer (our swim team star!) could be Michael Phelps.  Brills, right?!?

Nope.  Palmer wanted to match every other five year old on the street and be a ninja.  

Well, I got over my controlling behavior when I saw how much he LOVES being a ninja for this year's costume choice.  He is just so proud of his stealthiness in black.

We hosted our annual playgroup Halloween party again this year.  It's so special to still get together with this same group who have dressed in costumes together since they were 6 months old.  Now, we are one big motley crew.  We may now live spread out all over Dallas and the older kids are in different kindergartens.  But, the friendships are still special and the times together are so sweet.

(It cracks me up that Palmer distracted all of the kids in the photo above.)

Meanwhile, Aunt Samantha will be proud to note that I did move away from my traditional sticker pumpkins and actually let the kids carve a real pumpkin this year.

Now that the kids are older, it wasn't such a daunting idea to bust out the knives and open the pumpkin up this year.  If only the dang mosquitos wouldn't still attack us while outside in October.  Ugh.

 

-Bethany