I have to admit it, (now brace yourselves!) I hate Halloween. I am not a fan of the spooky or the all around selfish things children do on that day. Now having said that, I adore fall! All the vibrant colors, the harvest, the nip in the air, the out-of-season snow that makes you sing Christmas songs...I love it! I even like some of the traditions that have been paired up with Halloween, like dressing up in costumes or carving pumpkins.
Evelyn is old enough now to realize what Halloween is all about, and she is fascinated with all the spooky, gory, disturbing things that are everywhere. She wakes up occasionally by nightmares, but of course, when she is around scary things, she fills her mind to the brim with horrible images. So to refocus her, we've been filling our days with happy fall memories.
We started out by carving pumpkins. I know, it was way too early in the month for the pumpkins to actually last to Halloween, but who cares? Then you just get your jack-o-lanterns smashed on the street as gratitude for giving out treats.
Evelyn was so excited, but she was also extremely disgusted by the guts. We finally convinced her it was okay to get dirty, because sometimes that can be fun too. Prissy little girl....:D I certainly don't see much of the tomboy that we used to see in her all the time.
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| Watching Daddy adoringly! |
Here's what her pumpkin looked like when we were done. We also got to bake up some pumpkin seeds. Mmmm!
Here is Evelyn with the fun fall leaves. She loves making fall bouquets with sunflowers and leaves, red berries from trees, and of course: dandelions.
What is fall without some good football?
Here is Evelyn getting ready for a costume birthday party: her first! She was Cat Woman.
And here she is for another birthday party: Grandpa Ray's!
We've also gone to a few non-haunted corn mazes. The best was McCoard's Mystery Maze in Provo. It was so fun because they had a farm animal mystery that you solve while you're in the maze.
