Welcome to November! NaBloPoMo Here We Go Again!

How is is already November? How is my youngest already 2? The answers to these questions are all a matter of time moving faster than I’d necessarily like  it to. So since I feel that I am not nearly ready to write much after being tired from a long day of swimming lessons, school and rounding up the boys, I am presenting a mostly picture essay of our Halloween.  Too bad none of my pictures of the boys turned out. 🙁

We went all out with the decorations this year. The boys had fun putting up the spider webs with me.

This weekend was a fun mess of Halloween, movies, geocaching, cleaning and more Halloween.  On Friday Aidan had both a class party and the annual Halloween Howl that evening.  While he enjoyed all of it, the pinnacle of the whole evening was probably the firefighter patch one of the parents gave Aidan. This parent was a firefighter for Delta and was very impressed with Aidan’s costume.  Aidan was happy with all that he was able to do and had a blast.  When he got home he was very tired and it took him all of about 5 minutes to get to sleep.

Saturday Aidan and I went to see “Scooby-Doo: Curse of the Lake Monster” and I think it wouldn’t be exaggerating too much to say that Aidan really didn’t like it.  I am not sure why, but he was so worried about the scary parts that even the funny, parts had him upset.  Good thing the movie wasn’t too long and when we met up with Anthony and Quinlan all was fine. We had a good day playing tourist downtown.

I think it is fair to say that Sunday that Aidan was excited to be going trick-or-treating.  So after a long day of cleaning, drama class, pumpkin carving, we finally made it into our costumes and out the door to go hunting for candy.  As usual we went down to False Creek Co-op next to False Creek Elementary.  This is a complex that really does Halloween well.  They get a tonne of kids and they really decorate and get into the holiday.

This is typical of the complex. Most places are well decorated.

One of the more interesting pumpkins at the co-op.

Even simple carvings can be very effective.

Aidan was having a hard time waiting for his little brother. As he said, I was so excited I forgot my manners.

After knocking, Aidan noticed the hand coming out of the mail slot . . . he backed up pretty quickly.

Again, sometimes simple is very effective.

We trick-or-treated for about an hour, but we decided that we were finished when we had to keep reminding Aidan to say thank you.  He was so excited about all the candy, and he wanted to see what he was given right away that he kept forgetting.  While Anthony and I understood, we decided that before we got too much more frustrated with the lack of manners we had better quit for the night.  I don’t think Aidan was too disappointed.

When we got home, I got out the tripod and took some pictures of the pumpkins I carved.  Some turned out, but I still have a lot of work to do with balancing the colours and light situation.  The first few are outside, but since there was too much light that I couldn’t adjust I continued the shoot inside.  And before you ask, it had nothing to sdo with cold or how hard the concrete and tile were on my knees. Really, nothing at all.

Quinlan has a thing for owls and this is my fall back pattern.

I was running out of time so this one is just a free form simple carving.

Another owl simplified from a picture in the October Martha Stewart Living.

See the SPOOOKY web?

Next year I think I will do a pumpkin with only stars. Now if only I had a starburst filter this would have been a fantastic photograph.

I like the way the three pumpkins are so different, yet they go well together.

Hope you had a great Halloween!