The Kriz Family » Halloween

Trick or Treat – 2010

jim — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 04:09:53 +0000

This was the first Halloween in our new neighborhood, and it was definitely a good time. The neighborhood has a parade for all the kids, and after the parade, there are games and prizes – all before trick-or-treating starts. It was a lot of fun, and for the first time, Lukas was really excited about it. It didn’t hurt that he got to dress up as the “real” Buzz Lightyear, wings and all! Fortunately, he did not try to fly (or fall with style…) like Buzz does. Elsa, well, she won’t remember it at all, and probably could have cared less, but she sure was cute in her doggie costume

My parents were in town, and Heidi’s parents came over too, so everybody got to help pass out candy, play with the kids, and all that jazz. We enjoyed it, and I know Lukas and Elsa really did too.

Granny and Elsa the Doggie (Elsa has 4 teeth coming in, so her "chew toy" was a teething ring)

Buzz Lightyear, preparing to save the galaxy from the evil Emperor Zurg

Buzz Lightyear to Star Command. I’ve discovered a strange creature in some sort of transportation device.

The start of the WHA Halloween Parade (we’re on the right)

Grandpa Kriz in his hobo clown getup

Elsa the Doggie

Lukas the Buzz Lightyear

Spider Pumpkin

Woody and Buzz Pumpkins

Jack O’Lantern Pumpkin

Lukas checking out his booty

Granny says "Hey Lukas, what do you have in there? Anything for me?"

Trick or Treating

jim — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:38:32 +0000

All kids love dressing up on Halloween, and they all love going out trick or treating, right? You’d think so, but it turns out they all may not… We had to ease Lukas into his Fireman costume over the course of a few days, so on Halloween night he at least put it on without too big of a fuss. It took a little bit, but he finally got used to the costume and the helmet, and he ended up being a pretty good sport about it. Ok, so we’re good with the costume, now what about trick or treating. Well, we made it to about 3 houses before Lukas said “I’m done”, and headed back home. And at every house, Lukas said “trick or treat”, but then would either shove the candy away saying “don’t want it”, or if it managed to make it into his candy bag, he took it back out and gave it back. So, this was not as successful as getting him to wear the costume…

So we pretty much hung around at our house and had Lukas hand out candy to all the little (and some not so little…) trick-or-treaters. He had a good time, I think he just wasn’t ready for actually going out to the houses yet. Maybe next year.

Lukas the Fireman with his candy bag

Fireman on the move

Checking out the pumpkins

Mom, Lukas the Fireman, and Dad the Browns Fan

Elmo Pumpkin

Mickey Mouse Pumpkin

Jack-O-Lantern

Pumpkin Carving

jim — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:35:50 +0000

We got our pumpkins over a month ago, and we are finally carving them to get ready for Halloween tomorrow. We had three to carve, and we decided to be a little adventurous this year and try our hand at some “sculpting”, rather than just cutting holes in the pumpkins (though I have to say, we’ve had some pretty cool pumpkins in the past). This was probably not the time to try it, being that we didn’t get started til about 9pm the day before Halloween, but I said we were being adventurous, right?? We have 3 pumpkins, and my Dad offered to carve one, while Heidi and I each took one. We’ll have this done in no time.

The sculpting was more involved than I thought. We had some simple things we wanted to sculpt – an Elmo face and a Mickey Mouse face (which we think Lukas will go nuts over), and everything I read just said to cut about a half inch into the skin of the pumpkin and peel it away. Right… After trying many different tools for “peeling” away the skin – none of them very successful, and all very time consuming – I decided to bring out the Dremel tool and get to work with a router bit. I felt like Tim Taylor from Tool Time, getting out power tools to carve a pumpkin. That did the trick, but what a mess! We had to wipe down the table, chairs, the walls, and mop the floor after we were done. Not to mention the shavings in our hair, on our clothes, pretty much everywhere. Note for next year – do this outside, and wear a poncho.

I don’t have the pumpkin pictures yet, but here are a few others from the night.

Here’s Dad with his pumpkin. We were glad to have his help carving this year!

Taking a break from carving to pose for the camera.

Jim hard at work "sculpting" Mickey Mouse

A Dremel (with extension) and a couple router bits – pretty standard pumpkin carving tools, right?

Happy Halloween!

jim — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:28:24 +0000

Halloween is here again, and this year we had our little man dress up and trick-or-treat at a few of the neighbor’s houses. He was a little Yoda, and he seemed to really enjoy walking around and watching all the kids come by. All the other trick-or-treaters were commenting on the little baby Yoda. There were a couple “enemies” that came by (Darth Maul and Darth Vader), but Yoda didn’t seem to mind too much. He has a lot to learn about the Dark Side, but I think the Force is strong in this one, so I’m sure he will use his powers for good. Wow, that’s really corny. Heh, heh, heh.

Lukas liked his card from Grandma and Grandpa Kriz

If I cannot pull it out of the ground…

…use the Force to levitate it I will.

It was hard to keep him away from the pumpkins (and open flames…)

One last walk before bed

And just for comparison – here’s our little man as a dog last year – how much he’s grown!

Check out our supercool pumpkins…

Spongebob Pumpkin

Dreamy Pumpkin

Winking Pumpkin