Harry Potter Halloween

Halloween was really fun this year. Admittedly, as we all know, Halloween is not usually my cup of tea. But, Harry Potter is definitely my cup of tea, so having a Harry Potter Halloween was right up my alley.

AND….the greatest part of this year was that the kids carved their own pumpkins! Blake did his with Brody and Jake and Halle and Josh did theirs on a Sunday afternoon while I took a nap. It was amazing. They even cleaned of the seeds so all I had to do was throw them on a pan and roast them up. Older kids are so much fun. We didn’t get to the pumpkin patch this year so Vista Ridge Fall Festival to the rescue. We donated cans of food to the food bank and got free pumpkins. We were in and out in like 10 min. Perfect. Isn’t Halle’s Olaf so cute?

Why does Halloween have to drag out over multiple days? The ward Trunk or Treat was the Saturday before. Why do we need to give our kids more candy? Couldn’t we play some fun games, dress in our costumes and leave the candy at home? The kids had so much fun, but I just hate all the sugar. We had chili and cornbread, did the trunk or treat, and then watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” on an outdoor movie screen. I was feeling particularly energetic this year and I even sorta decorated my trunk. First time ever.

Harry Potter and his arch nemesis, Draco Malfoy

Jake and Blake, the two Harry Potters.

Also on Saturday Halle got to march again in the Longmont Halloween parade. This is such a fun event. We sat right by the Cheba Hut and introduced the boys to their delicious breakfast sandwiches. And marijuana paraphernalia.

Next up, sugar cookies! Yay! Rusty wins for the grossest cookie.

Then came the class parties. I am the room mom for Josh’s class this year and had fun planning the party with the help of Marguerite Lampson and Paulette Bradford. The hit of the day was the Ghost Rockets. We also had a contest to see who could build the coolest structure with toothpicks and gum drops, played Mad Libs and had a spooky snack that included these Boo-nanas.

While I was at Josh’s party, Rusty came to Blake’s. It’s so fun to have dad around for these things!

This year we didn’t do the pumpkin pizza palace. The owner of the Papa Murphy’s who donated the crusts to us is not longer there. And I didn’t contact the store soon enough to get the new owner on board. We were all a little bummed to not do it, but it also made for a much easier week and I think I needed that. But, we still did order a pumpkin pizza for ourselves on Halloween. Rusty also picked up some dry ice and we grabbed some caffeine free Coke to make some Harry Potter potions.

Finally, finally, finally, we were on to the main event. Trick-or-Treat time! Our kids and the Rowberry kids had planned to all be Harry Potter Characters. Let me introduce you to: (from left to rt, top to bottom) Quiddich Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Luna Lovegood, Bellatrix Lestrange, Narcissa Malfoy, regular Harry Potter, Hermoine Granger and Hedwig the owl.

Picture time was complete pandemonium. Jane was crying the whole time, Luke hated his Hedwig hat, Blake would not look at the camera, etc. I wish we had a video of it. It was super funny and super frustrating all at the same time. Jon and Larraine were here too and Jon could not believe the chaos. But, we got some pretty great shots, so maybe it was worth the trauma we all endured. 🙂

The Bad Guys:

The Good Guys:

The Two Potters:

Harry on his Broom:

Rusty and Hedwig:

Mother and Son:

We went out in Colliers Hill, Vista Point and Vista Ridge. The littles stopped after Colliers Hill and then we dropped the big girls at a party at the Toys. We took the other 4 around Vista Ridge until they had so much candy they could hardly carry it. They loved every minute of it. I think we counted that they got 8 full sized candy bars this year.

The dentist will pay $1/lb to the kids for their candy. My kids said this wasn’t worth it, so I told them I’d double his rate and give them $2/lb. They each gave me about 1/2 their candy, which still left them with WAAAAAY to much.

And I definitely took my “Mommy Tax.”