Happy Halloween!

This is our first Halloween in the States and I’ve got to say, it’s quite different than at home.  Everyone here is so into it.  At home, people take it or leave it.  I mean we kind of decorated the house, carved pumpkins and then walked the two streets in our neighbourhood with our friends, but that was it.  It wasn’t much but the kids had fun.  This year, they’ve been talking about this day since before October started.  I mean the Halloween decorations were in the stores in the beginning of August.  Cookie decorators were posting cookie ideas about the same time.  The houses were decorated the beginning of October and the girls have been counting down the days. 

So now it’s finally here and I’ve got to say I’m exhausted.  This year I made both girls costumes. They got to choose and now Abby is Rapunzel and Rowan is Baby Jaguar.  If I say next year I’m making costumes again, remind me about this year and what a nightmare it was.  Now it turned out great and every time I look at the dress for Abby I’m happier with it, but during I think I lost most of my hair.  I’m sure you all heard the distant screaming and wondered what that was…it was me!

Sorry about the bad pic, I’ll put up better pics once they are all dressed up for tonight.

I also decorated 11 dozen cookies in the Halloween theme.  One dozen went to a co-worker of Rob’s for his daughters and the other 10 dozen were for a fellow Body Pumper.  I’ve never made that many cookies in one shot before and my hand was definitely crampy be the end of the decorating process. I made 13 of each cookie.  I stole so many ideas from fellow cookiers and really enjoyed the experience. Thank you Karen’s Cookies, Sugarbelle, and Lilaloa for your awesome inspiration.  But now I’m tired.   I mean I’ve made cakes, no problem, but I’m newish to the cookie game.  I think they turned out pretty good though :)

These are my favs!

Once the cookies were done we had four little girls in our house on Sunday to decorate Haunted Gingerbread Houses.  I made the gingerbread from scratch and then promptly ran out of it.  So one side of the house is made out of sugar cookies as I had some in the fridge, thank god! I put the houses together so the girls just had to decorate.  They used candy melts, jelly beans, marshmallows and some of the Halloween Candy I bought to hand out.  I also helped out with a little Wilton spray food colouring for fun accents.  So they may not have turned out as scary, that you could call them haunted, but the girls had a blast. There may have been more candies eaten than put on the houses.  Look at these happy faces.  The decorating was followed up with face paints, but forgot to take pics, sorry!

Abby and Rowan also carved their own pumpkins.  Well they drew the faces on and then Rob carved them for the girls.

So the girls are ready for the big trick or treat and I’m getting ready to hand out candy.  I’m glad it’s over and now know how much I will have to do for next year!

Don’t forget, if you carved a pumpkin and took a picture, just send it to me to win some great prizes (well I think they are great).  Details can be found here!

Thanks for looking!

Linking with:
Get Your Craft On
Tasty Tuesday
Kurtz's Corner
Handmade Tuesdays