Jack and the Beanstalk

This year, I decided to do a family theme for our costumes.  First of all, I found the greenbean costume for Boone.  Most people know that we refer to the boys as our 'beans' and that I use 'piperbean' for several things from my blog address to email addresses.  I got 'bean' from the first two letters of my name {beth} and the last two letters of Dan's name {be + an = bean}.  Then I thought it would be fun to do a Jack and the Beanstalk theme.  So I started searching online for costume ideas and found a girl's blog and her blog post from last year about how she made a 'Jack' costume for her baby.  And I decided it was time to bring the crafty side of Beth back out from wherever she's been hiding for the last few years.  It has been a while since I've done much of anything I would consider to be crafty.  And I think it had been at least 10 years since I had turned on my sewing machine!  I made Fenn's hat and yellow tunic and ended up staying up one night until 1:30 doing the whipstitch around the neck and armholes.  I even made the belt by braiding some brown yarn.  I kept my costume and Dan's costume pretty simple so we could still be comfortable.  Plus, I didn't have a lot of time to devote to our's.  Dan {the beanstalk} wore all different shades of green and had a leafy vine draped around him.  I {the hen that laid the golden eggs} wore all brown and then made a headband covered in brown feathers with a golden egg glued to the top. 

Just like last year, we planned to trick-or-treat with some of our friends who live on our street.  We had 8 kids aged 4 and under and a wagon train of 4 wagons.  We met up over at our neighbors' house a little after 5:00.  The forecast had called for a good bit of rain all day, but so far it had rained early that morning and then held off all day.  Unfortunately, it didn't last and it started raining around the time we were planning to start trick-or-treating.  We grabbed some umbrellas and headed out anyway.  We weren't going to let a little rain spoil everyone's fun.

It only took Fenn a couple of houses to figure out the routine.  We had already been practicing his "chick or cheat" {trick or treat} throughout the day.  By the second or third house he was walking up to the door on his own, saying "chick or cheat", and holding out his treat bag for more candy.  I thought he was really good considering he had to be patient and wait on the older kids to get their candy first.  They were all much faster at getting to everyone's doors!  But he'll be able to keep up with them much better next year.  And hopefully it won't be raining again... The rain seemed to really slow us down.  Fenn was so cute because every once in a while, he would stop and look down into his treat bag as if he was admiring his goods.  He's never really had much candy, so I'm surprised at how interested he was in it.

Boone was really good throughout the evening.  We took the stroller and had the seat reclined so we could just lay him down.  At every house, we would pick him up and walk up to the door with him so he could participate in all the fun, too.  But after the 6th or 7th house, we could tell he was getting sleepier and sleepier.  I would go to pick him up and he would be half asleep.  He would wake up long enough to go to someone's door, but would start nodding off as soon as we put him back in the stroller.  For the last few houses, we just let him stay in the stroller.

We only trick-or-treated for a little over an hour.  Once we got home, Fenn helped us answer the door and hand out candy a few times.  He would also get some more candy for himself and put it in his treat bag.  He wanted to watch Charlie Brown's "The Great Pumpkin" again, so we turned it on.  {He fell in love with The Great Pumpkin this year and has been watching it over and over!}  He sat down in his chair and went into one of those "I'm completely exhausted and over-stimulated" trances, staring blankly at the TV and holding his treat bag on his lap.  Then he snapped out of it and started hamming it up for the camera.  At some point (probably at school), he has learned to say "Cheeeeeese" when having his photo taken.  I think Boone was asleep by around 7:30 and then Fenn was probably asleep between 8:00 and 8:30.  It was a big day and night for our piperbeans.  Not only did they have trick-or-treating that night, but Fenn also went to Ella Kate's (his school friend) birthday party earlier that day.  He talked about "EK house" {Ella Kate's house} all day and the next day.

The next morning, we were headed out to church.  While walking through the garage to get to the car, Fenn saw his wagon and said, "Again... again."  He wanted to go trick-or-treating again.

I have more photos from Halloween night in the "Fall 2009" photo album.  Just look over in the right-hand column of the blog under "More Photos of Fenn and Boone" and click on the link to the photo album.