Boys vs. Girls: The Johnson Family: Halloween Boo-nanza!

This year we got all of our money's worth for Halloween! We celebrated the holiday 3 times this year. It was really fun. I have to admit Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Mostly because it reminds me of the fall season. Don't get me wrong, there isn't really a fall season in Arizona... But it's just the thought of fall. Growing up in Colorado, fall colors, cooler weather and candy just go hand-in-hand. Our 3 different celebrations included, Lucas' Fall Festival at his preschool, Howl-o-ween at the local zoo and then the holiday itself.

In preparation for the holiday, we of course deliberated on what Lucas and Macie were going to be for Halloween. I have been putting it off for a few years now and finally gave in this year, Lucas was a UofA basketball player. Seriously it was so cute. I knew he would love it, plus we already had the outfit, we just needed wristbands and a sweatband to complete the look. Lucas was in pure heaven being a basketball player. Let's just hope he doesn't want to be one every year from now on.

Macie was going to be a little ladybug. I didn't want to buy one of those thick costumes because it is just too hot here to wear one. Plus she is a little hot body anyway and she would have been uncomfortable. So Grandma Johnson found a cute red onesie with black polkadots. All I did was purchase a cute black tutu and added a little black ribbon to the back of the onesie to make bigger dots, put pigtails in her hair and voila! Cutest little ladybug I have ever seen.

The first of the festivities began with Lucas' Fall Festival at his preschool. All of the classrooms had different themes. Did we visit more than 3 classrooms... No! We spent most of the time, along with most of the kids outside playing on the playground. It was really nice to see him play with his friends from his class and other students. I think he had a blast.

VIP Fall Festival Pictures

My little basketball player!

So tough!

Little Miss Macie.
I love her piggies for her antennae.

Lucas and Macie taking a picture together... But Macie was grabbing at Lucas and he was NOT okay with that.

A much better picture of my babies.

Lucas and his best buddy, Christian.

Grandpa Fildes and Macie.

Getting his face painted in one of the classrooms.

Go Cats!

The next event was a trip to the local zoo. They close the zoo at night and it is decorated for Halloween. It really is magical. The Howl-o-ween event is only the Friday, Saturday and Sunday before Halloween so you can imagine how busy it can be. Luckily Grandma Johnson is a member and got us member privileges so we got it right away and the crowd wasn't bad at all. There were maybe 20 people ahead of us. It was really nice. The only minor issue was that while we were waiting for the zoo to open, Lucas was running around with some other kids, fell and totally scraped both of his knees. Sorry kid... We were going in no matter what! Luckily when we got inside and he saw all of the pumpkins and decorations, he forgot all about it.

Howl-o-ween Pictures!

My little ladybug waiting so patiently to go inside.

Lucas pushing Macie.
Yes... That is a Starbucks coffee. A must!

Lucas and Alvin!

Lucas, Matt and R2D2.

Ending the night with a little ice cream.

Oh yeah... She LOVES ice cream. And Lucas was a good sharer.

One of the scraped up knees.
A photo taken by Lucas himself.

Can you tell he is totally tuckered out!

Then the big event... The big holiday... Halloween itself. We had big plans to go to a local pumpkin patch to get pumpkins, but when we drove out there (about 1 hour), the line was over 200 people just to get in and that was just not going to happen. Sorry. I am not about to wait over an hour to get in, then wait to go to the pumpkin patch and then wait some more. So we stopped at one of the little pumpkin stand and got two little pumpkins and one big one.

Of course we carved pumpkins and we had great plans on what we were going to do this year. Since is has been the month of Mickey Mouse, Matt carved the big one to look like Mickey. The two little ones were carved with an L for Lucas and a M for Macie. Perfect! Lucas had a great time digging out the seeds with a spoon, but wasn't too sure about actually touching the gooey parts. He also helped me roast pumpkin seeds. Would he try any? No. But I sure enjoyed them.

Such concentration.

L for Lucas.

M, Mickey and L.
They came out so nicely.

On Halloween, Lucas' preschool does a costume parade. Lucas was so excited for two reasons. The first was that he got to wear his costume to school. The second was that the parade was at Matt's school, Cienega. Lucas and his class got to parade through the front office and trick-or-treat. Matt had plans to take his class to the front office during the parade, but wasn't able to. Luckily, all of the office ladies know Lucas and know me and took pictures and sent them to us. Thank You!

VIP Halloween Parade

Of course Halloween usually falls during basketball try outs for Matt. But he is such a great dad that he starts basketball a little later that night so he can go trick-or-treating with us. But that means he runs home from the lower level try-outs, we go trick-or-treating and he heads back up to the gym. This also means that I am in charge of getting them ready.... All... By... Myself! What?! This includes feeding them dinner, getting Macie ready with pigtails and getting Lucas all decked out. But I am such a super mom (sometimes) I did it. Plus, I managed to take some more cute pictures before Matt got home. Oh yeah. Don't be too impressed, I didn't cook dinner. We picked up chinese food. I think Lucas totally gets the idea of Halloween... That is CANDY! He loved going from house to house. He would say "Trick or Treat" get his candy, then say "Thank You!" I think he would have gone to every house if he we had let him. Lucas also enjoyed handing out candy to the kids who came to our house. He would open the door and say, "Happy Halloween!" then we would pass out the candy to the kids.

Halloween Pictures!