I said in my last post that during half-term we 'did' Halloween, but didn't include there what that meant.  This year we managed to get all the festivities done in one day, which was an miraculous feat.  I usually have to spread out all the fun over a few days because people just can't seem to pay attention long enough to get it all done.  This year, however, we started out early in the kitchen making Halloween sugar cookies:

While those were baking and cooling, we got on with carving our pumpkins.  Finally, I have some children old enough to be able to carve their own pumpkins, as well as help out with carving the pumpkins of the younger ones!

We got around to breaking out the sugar in the afternoon as we decorated the cookies and some pumpkin cupcakes:

It was then time to get the costumes on and have our Halloween feast.  We dined on witches hair, monster eyeballs in blood, Frankenstiens's toes, and monster guts.  Then Harry Potter (Samuel), Mona the Vampire (Georgie), the little black cat (Nelly) and the tooth fairy got ready to go trick or treating.

Tim set out all our jack-o-lanterns, so that the one family who did come trick or treating to our house was greeted with a welcome sight (no one comes trick or treating to us because we live on a road with lots of old people and somehow no one thinks that they are ready to receive trick or treaters).

This one is Georgie's (she did it all by herself!):

This one is Samuel's.  He is going through a Lord of the Rings obessive phase at the moment:

Abigail and Imogen actually got along well enough to make a joint effort with their jack-o-lantern:

This one is Eleanor's, which matches her costume:

Finally, our little Verity had a pumpkin as well (carved by Mommy, who was going for the easy option):