Halloween, Part I -- The 30th: Story Time, Pumpkin Carving and More Halloween Crafts

As usual, this year Halloween was a multiple day celebration.  This year we fit in a lot of festive activities on the 30th.  Keira and I started the day by going to Story Time.  Ms. Janice, the librarian, invited us to bring our kids in costume to the Halloween themed Story Time. This year the kids decided to dress up in correlating costumes again. I think we watched Toy Story nearly every day this summer, so the kids decided they could dress up like Buzz Lightyear and Jessie. Again, I loved that they wanted to wear matching costumes, as I know it's finite to say the least.  Keira and I were excited to unveil her Jessie costume for the first time in public.  She also had fun dressing up her mini me and Woody for the occasion. 

On the way to the library, Keira, a.k.a. Jessie, visited Grammie at the thrift store to show off her costume.

Then, Jessie and I enjoyed our Halloween themed Story Time.

That afternoon, after Elijah got home from school, we continued our festive activities by carving pumpkins.  This was the first year that Elijah truly carved his pumpkin and got into the gooey fun.  In years past, he helped to design his Jack-O-Lantern, but left the cutting to me and Daddy.  This year, he did a great job with his child safety Jack-O-Lantern knife.  I love the picture of him with the pumpkin innards and his huge grin.  It's one of my favorite from the year.

As for Keira's pumpkin, she didn't do a whole lot of carving, but she did enjoy helping to design her pumpkin and decorating it with stickers.

We culminated our Halloween Eve with a few more pictures of Halloween crafts -- Keira's footprint ghosts hanging on the fridge and Elijah's shape monster on the mantle.  Keira's fascination with the Halloween crafts renewed her brother's interest in crafts and they both loved the shape monsters in particular.  In fact, every month or so since, they decide to make another shape monster each.