A few nights before Halloween we checked out a local pumpkin show. The guy who owns this house has carved all these pumpkins (they're foam) and created a light and music show with a couple "talking pumpkins". It was cute and the there were so many different pumpkins. It was fun to see all the characters he'd carved.
A couple nights later, Chris got busy on our three pumpkins. The oldest girls chose characters for him to carve this year. Kayla chose Bing-Bong (the imaginary friend character from Inside Out).
The master carver
Elise chose Ariel (The Little Mermaid) and Ava chose Minnie and Mickey "with a heart".
He did a fantastic job as always. The neighborhood was impressed.
I should mention that the girls each chose their pumpkin at the store themselves. Unfortunately the first one Ava chose got eaten by some animal, so she had to pick another one. She and Chris literally got the last one at the grocery store near us two days before Halloween. It was a little misshapen. But it had character.
Working on adding some details for Sophie's costume the morning of Halloween.
They were the 5 Emotions from Pixar's Inside Out movie.
Anger, Disgust, Joy, Fear, and Sadness.
Unfortunately the hair spray paint that I'd purchased was garbage, so Kolbe's hair was the only hair that turned out as we'd hoped. I frantically ran to Target to see what they might have and all that was left were some blond wigs. I cut one into a bob for Sophie and we used the rest of our hair spray paint, but it wasn't enough, so the wigs looked a bit lame, which bummed us all out a bit.
After all our planning and hard work, it wasn't quite what we'd hoped for, but it was still really cute and everyone loved it. Except Sophie. She hated that wig. For whatever reason it sorta weirded her out. Hence her crying in these first few pictures.
She finally gave us a little smile. Meanwhile, Kolbe's trying to be Dr. Evil over there.
We tried more pictures to see if we could get "Joy" to smile for one. Kolbe wasn't having it, which was ok, because he was Anger after all. ;)
This was the closest we got to each of them portraying their said emotion.
I stayed back to hand out candy and Chris took the kids around the cul-de-sac. At the first house, Sophie lost it. Our neighbor came to the door dressed in a mask and it freaked her the heck out. She refused to step foot on the driveway of the next house, so Chris brought her home to hang out with me.
And I did get her to smile (finally) for a couple pictures.
There's our little Joy!
(Just for fun, we'd talked about some coordinating virtues to practice for each emotion with the kids and we talked about how joy is born of true love. When we love without counting the cost, we are filled with joy).
Kolbe made it around the cul-de-sac before he was getting tired, so Chris brought him home so I could put him to bed and he and the oldest three ventured further down the street to trick-or-treat.
Here's Anger.
(His associated virtue to strive for was self-control. It's easy to blow up when we feel upset about something, but it's virtuous to breathe and have self-control so that we can work on solving the problem instead of creating a bigger one.)
Those angry eyebrows. ha.
He helped me sweep before I gave them both a bath and put Kolbe to bed.
My angry helper. ;)
Eventually the trick-or-treaters arrived home with bags full of treats which they generously shared with Sophie so she could have a nice full bag of treats as well.
Kayla was Disgust.
I was the most bummed about her hair not working as planned, because it made her look a bit like white trash. oh well. She wasn't shy about letting people know what her costume was.
(Her virtue was gratitude. When we have a heart that is thankful and takes the time to reflect on the blessings in our lives, we are able to root out a lot of that disgust and complaining in our lives.)
Elise was Fear.
She certainly has battled some big fears in her life. A couple years ago she was afraid (like really really afraid) of a lot of things. Tons of things at Disneyland; rides (any that moved quickly and went through a tunnel of any kind, so like 90% of them), some of the characters. She was deathly afraid of thunderstorms and wind (as in she would scream if we went for a walk and there was wind). But she has really worked to conquer those fears which has been exciting.
(Her virtue was trust. The verse we taught her long ago was "When I am afraid I will trust in You, in God whose word I praise." When we trust that God is bigger and stronger than anything, we can slowly begin to let go of our fears because we know that He is in charge and His plan is better than ours and is for our good.)
Ava was Sadness.
A perfect Sadness too. She's a melancholic and is often found over-dramatizing things. She's also found loving and hugging a lot too. Her passion goes both ways.
(Her virtue was connected (as it was in the movie) to Joy. Life can be hard. Bad things happen. Sad things happen. But if we are rooted in Christ, we know that he can heal and he can turn our sadness to joy. )
Happy Halloween from the Bissonnettes!
