Halloween 2016

Oh, Halloween.  You are my favorite for sure.  I love everything about this time of the year.  Cooler weather, fall colors on the trees, and of course pumpkin everything.  Just like last year, this year we crammed about a weeks worth of seasonal activities into a span of a few days.  By the time Halloween hit I think Arlo was like - "I get to do this again?!"  This year Arlo wanted to be Handy Manny, a cartoon handyman that is todays bilingual version of Bob the Builder.  I would be lying if I said I didn't put the bug in his ear to be Manny after falling in love with the show last winter (yes, I actually think about Halloween ten months in advance.)  Thankfully Arlo was still on board with the idea when October rolled around, although he did say a few times when asked that he also wanted to be a dinosaur and a monster.  Keeping with my current theme of keeping things as simple as I could, I did the best I could to put together a Handy Manny-like costume without worrying about being too spot on.  I ordered the hat and shirt (a close enough match for me) online, made his tool belt from inexpensive craft felt I already had on hand (the night before our first Halloween event I might add), and dressed him in a pair of slightly too-big pants so we could cuff them.  He also wore some boots we already had on hand, and the tool set was bought on Amazon.  He was super excited to dress up and loved telling people he was Handy Manny - and had to correct about half of everyone because they all thought he was Bob the Builder, ha!  Oliver spent all his time at the Halloween events in the carrier so he wore the pumpkin hat I recently crocheted for his two month photos. 

Our first Halloween event was one we also did last year - story time and trick or treat around our local library.  So fun!  We went with Arlo's little friend Noah who was dressed as Daniel Tiger.

The Friday before Halloween we went to visit Erik at work where they had trunk or treat and games for the kids to play.  After we left we headed to the nearby community center where they had a huge halloween event - more trunk or treat and a gym full of games.  Arlo had so much fun, Oliver slept happily in the carrier the whole time.  I was happy to learn that all of the stops had non-candy options so Arlo came home with a lot of stickers, pencils, and small toys instead of candy that he wouldn't be able to eat.

Saturday we went to a local farm and pumpkin patch.  I had been looking forward to doing this all month, and it was so worth the wait.  They had animals to visit and feed, a giant corn pit to play in (equally fun for the adults!), a corn maze, tire swings, and several other fun activities for the kids.  We ended the visit with a hayride to the pumpkin patch where we picked out our own pumpkins.  We stayed there all morning and when it was time to leave Arlo ran away from us crying and yelling that he didn't want to go, ha!  Visiting this farm will definitely become an annual B family tradition.

 

Sunday evening we carved our pumpkins.  Keeping things simple we did just two this year.  Erik made a traditional jack-o-lantern face and I let Arlo pick out the stencil for his pumpkin, he choose a spider which is no surprise since he has a slight spider obsession lately.

notice the spooky Lucy face in the background?

Monday was finally Halloween and of course that day both kids napped until dinner time so by the time we got costumes on it was almost dark and I couldn't take any photos outside.  So here are the kids before we headed out:

 

In case you are wondering how vegans do Halloween... Well, we are still figuring that out year by year.  Arlo doesn't eat candy so it still isn't an issue for us.  He loved picking out candy from the bowls but really had no idea what he was choosing since he's never had a kit kat, skittles, or even a sucker.  We don't intentionally deprive him of these things, he's really just not interested in them yet and we certainly don't encourage it.  So when we got home we quickly swapped out the collected items for some we had ready to go - vegan gummies, fruit ropes, and fruit snacks.  Arlo didn't notice things had changed likely because he was so excited to find his favorite fruit ropes in their place.  I think he ate something like four or five packages of fruit snacks but I suppose that is what Halloween is all about, right? 

Halloween, twenty-fifteen.

I am not sure who enjoyed Halloween more this year, Arlo or Erik and I.  This year was everything that I hoped the Halloween experience would be as parents of a little one.  Last year was fun dressing Arlo up in his fuzzy little caterpillar costume, but he was still far too young to go trick-or-treating and appreciate all the things that kids (and adults - lets be honest here) love about this time of the year.  Although he is still too young for candy (we will be riding this train as long as we can) we still took him trick-or-treating and he had so much fun.  This whole post is going to be total picture overload, so consider yourself warned.

The Halloween decorations came out way early for us this year.  My parents visited us at the beginning of  September, bringing with them boxes of Halloween decor that my Mom always put out when my sister and I were little kids.  Seeing all the pumpkins and little figurines I hadn't seen in years brought back many memories, and I am so lucky my parents hung on to everything for so long, and even luckier that they passed them along them to us.  I decided that instead of hauling everything up to the attic only to bring it back down a month later, I would just go ahead and decorate early.  I don't usually have seasonal decorations up before the stores even put them out, but this year I won.  Take that, Target.

Our neighbors also got into the Halloween spirit somewhat early.  At the beginning of October, the house two doors down put up these giant inflatable ghosts and a grim reaper in their front yard.  It became our daily ritual to stop at this house and look at all the decorations on our morning walks.  If I forgot, Arlo would point and yell "ghost! ghost!"  It didn't take me long to learn that we were stopping there everyday, no matter what.

As I mentioned in my last post, the weekend before Halloween we visited a pumpkin patch in the mountains where we took some photos and picked up some fresh apple cider and local apples.  Arlo was a bit pumpkin obsessed this year, so he was thrilled to be in a field full of them.  It was on this trip that we scored Arlo's costume at a kids consignment store, an adorable monkey suit that we couldn't resist.  Last week, I took Arlo to a Halloween-themed story time at our local library and he got to wear the costume for the first time.  All the kids and even the librarians had on Halloween costumes, and after story time everyone went trick-or-treating through the library.  At first Arlo was confused and seemed to wonder if it was okay to take random things from strangers, ha!  He didn't care at all about the candy but loved the tiny bottle of bubbles they passed out and thought the pumpkin hand stamp was pretty cool too.

That night, we kept the Halloween spirit going and carved our pumpkins.  I can't remember the last time I carved a pumpkin before this year.  It was a long time ago, that's for sure.  Even though we obviously were not going to let Arlo play with sharp carving tools, he had a blast scooping out the pumpkin guts and watching Erik and I do the carving.  I let Arlo pick out the stencil design from the book that came with the carving tools.  No surprise here, he picked the ghost.  Erik was a little more hard core with his carving process.  He printed out a stencil from online, cut it out with a razor, and then busted out the power tools to carve his Grateful Dead pumpkin.  It was worth all the extra steps, his pumpkin turned out awesome. 

When we were finished carving, I put the pumpkins in the foyer, lit candles inside them, and turned off the lights.  Arlo came running in, stopped dead in his tracks, inhaled sharply, and let out a big "wow!"  I only wish I had recorded it on video.

On Friday Erik's office hosted a trunk-or-treat in their parking lot.  Arlo decided to take a super long nap that day so we missed the outdoor activities, but we still stopped by to show off his little monkey suit.  Everyone loved having him visit, and many of Erik's coworkers found a little trinket or two from their desks to put in Arlo's pumpkin basket.  He received some very random items: pumpkin stickers, zip ties, a happy meal toy, a foam dumbbell, and a monster truck.  Someone tried to give him a full-sized candy bar and Erik quickly put the kibosh on that, ha. 

The three of us left Erik's office together and headed to a little village of shops near our house that was hosting a big trick-or-treating event.  Every store was participating and handing out candy.  We got there right when it started and it was packed!  By this point Arlo was getting pretty good at his candy collection skills and walked right up so he could get candy put in his basket.  When he got to choose his own candy, he took only one piece and always picked a pack of whoppers.  We ate dinner in the village and then headed home to rest up, for the next day was Halloween!

Last year we were living in a not-at-all trick-or-treating friendly neighborhood.  There were not many kids in our area and the houses were rather far apart.  So, in addition to enjoying their company and the fact that their daughter is one of Arlo's besties, we decided to spend Halloween with our friends in their much more kid-friendly neighborhood.  Even though this year we are now in a family-friendly neighborhood ourselves, we decided that we cared more about hanging with our friends and letting the kids play together than passing out candy at our own house, so we went over to John & Rhianna's house again.  The kids had so much fun together and I think Arlo would have trick-or-treated for hours if we had let him.  We decided to just stay on their street, and went to maybe seven or eight houses.  Arlo can say trick-or-treat ("tick teet") but in the usual toddler fashion, didn't want to perform on command.  He did say "tanks" after he was given candy though which was completely adorable.  He wasn't at all shy about going up to get candy, and he even hung around one house probably hoping to score more.  He kept looking at their candy bowl and showing them his loot, and they commented on what a social little guy he is. 

Erik and I were originally not going to dress up, but he was able to score a free "Scream" costume at a yard sale a few weeks ago, and I decided to just be a devil again - it was like my third or fourth time wearing that costume but it's the only one I had on hand.  They all worked out well though because they were warm costumes and it was a chilly evening, and hey, you can't beat free.  Arlo's little friend Lyra went as Minnie Mouse, and she was super cute as always.  Can you see the pigtails in the photo of them together?!

Now can we also just take a second to look back at last years Halloween photo?  I barely recognize these tiny babies!

And now back to present day...

group shot photo credit goes to Rhianna and her new camera!

And to address the question that I have been asked many times already, and will likely have to answer for years to come - "how do you do halloween as vegans?" 

This year was easy.  Arlo doesn't eat candy yet and doesn't even know what it is, so he just thought he was collecting "things" as we trick-or-treated, and didn't even miss them when I dumped them in the big candy bowl back at the house.  We did of course hang on to the mini jar of play-doh - he was super happy to have received that.  I was prepared in case he wasn't so easy going about giving up his treats, and had bought mini packets of organic graham crackers, fruit ropes, and a Halloween matchbox car.  However, I forgot all about those treats until we were leaving for home as there was never any need to get them out.  Arlo was more interested in snacking on the baby carrots and tortilla chips when we were done going house to house.  Next year will probably be something similar in terms of how we address the non-vegan candy situation.  I will have a bag of health(ier) treats to swap out after we make the rounds, and can hopefully do it without him noticing.  I realize as he gets older this won't be such an easy task, but I hope by that point I can explain why we eat the way we do and he will more or less understand.  And it's not all about the products being vegan, even vegan candy is often unhealthy and a really unnecessary part of a kids diet.  I get it, I get it, it's only one day of the year.  And we all ate it growing up.  So, maybe when he's much older I won't care so much about avoiding things like "hydrogented palm oil, potassium sorbate, and red 40" but right now, well, I just do.

And in case there is any worry that Arlo has been missing his favorite ghost at the neighbors house, not to fear.  The day after Halloween, the ghosts and grim reaper disappeared and were replaced by a giant inflatable turkey.

Thanksgiving twenty-fifteen, we are ready for ya.

rain all morning = sleepy turkey  ;)