Wizz Kids Halloween Day & Trick or Treating

So its Happy Halloween and the boys both had a great day at a Wizz Kids summer club today. This saved me having to use up all my vacation during half term and gave Tina a break from looking after them all day given that she is very heavily pregnant now. Best of all is that it was effectively free of charge as I have still been saving a bit of money in child care vouchers since Brandon stopped nursery, so we already had money aside to cover this activity.

In addition to carving more pumpkins at Wizz Kids, the boys both got their faces painted.



Both boys really enjoyed their day at Wizz Kids which is great news for us as it means it is another club we can use for the odd day during school holidays / half terms.

Anyway in the last few days the boys have been getting very creative and arty with Halloween activities. Not only did they carve their pumpkins a few days ago, but Tina has had them making Halloween paper chains and Xmas door hangers, then yesterdays they visited Auntie Lisa’s Laboratory for a Halloween themed craft day where they painted pumpkins, coloured scary pictures and made some pipe cleaner spiders.
 



The boys making a Halloween paper chain.

Little B at the Lab hard at work painting his pumpkin.

 

Joshua hard at working making a mess and painting his pumpkin at Auntie Lisa's Lab.



Tonight after dinner we all dressed up in our fancy dress costumes and his the streets of the Wick for some trick or treating. I never remember Halloween being this commercialised when I was a kid (guess we have a lot to thank the Americans for). It now seems Halloween has kind of over shadowed Guy Fawkes night completely. My two know about bonfire night and fireworks, but they wouldn’t have a clue who Guy Fawkes is and certainly have never heard of “penny for a guy”.

All four of us dressed up and ready to go out trick or treating.

 

Brandon wanted to dress up as the black Spiderman this year.

Joshua had a blue Power Ranger costume but chose his scary clown for tonight's trick or treating.

Some of the houses around the neighbourhood made the most amazing effort of decorating their houses for Halloween. But by far the best was the one shown below which was themed around a haunted theme park. They had smoke, haunting sounds and music, a real working/spinning carousel, a magicians box with a dummy person inside and a saw that was automatically cutting backwards and forwards through the box using some sort of motorised mechanism, lights everywhere. It was absolutely amazing and must have took hours and hours and hours to create and set-up. The pictures really don't do this display any justice. 

The spinning carousel and the dagger throwing board in the Creepy Circus.

The saw cutting through the women in the box with the audience watching on in amazement.

As usual it seems like half of Abacus school were out doing trick or treat on the estate. To be honest it was amazing that anyone was actually inside their houses to give out treats. Before long we seemed to be moving from house to house with a mini clan of dressed up kids. Joshua was in his element as he met his best friend Tom and the two of them were pretty much just racing from one house to the next. 

The mini clan of scary kids going from door to door collecting sweets and treats.



The amount of sweets the boys accumulated in an hour and half was quite incredible really.

Overall we had an absolute blast going out trick or treating and scourered the neighbourhood for about an hour and a half in the end. It was really nice to see all the other kids and the various Mum's and Dad's from the school all out and enjoying Halloween. It gave you a real sense of being in a community and having fun. Brandon was still a little scared of some of the houses and a few people which opened their doors were a bit too much in character and subsequently he would go nowhere near them.

Anyway another important part of Halloween is of course the pumpkin carving. In total we now have 8 pumpkins on display. Two that the boys painted at the Lab, two that the carved at home, two that they carved at Wizz kids and then two that I carved ready for Bonoween this weekend. Joshua and Brandon picked the theme for my pumpkin carvings this year and I will be first to admit it is not my best work. Although a lot of trick or treat'ers did comment that they really liked the Angry Bird one.

My Angry Bird pumpkin bursting through a brick wall.

My second pumpkin carving was Turbo the snail from the new Dreamworks kids film.

Turbo and Angry Bird hanging proudly in our porch way.

On the back of Turbo I carved one of the other snail characters from the film.

Mine and the boys pumpkin carvings hanging up and on display.