Saturday, November 1, 2008

Are You Kidding Me??? Trunk or TREAT!?!?

Most of you will know that we haven't typically participated in any kind of Halloween activities in the past...however, this year-I admit, we got in the game a little bit. Our church decided to host a "Trunk or Treat" for the neighboring communities. So what you do is decorate your trunk...making some sort of game or activity for kids to participate it. So we decided to participate in the evangelistic efforts as a family. Everyone played an important role!



Alex dressed up like a ninja (his favorite heros of today's society). However, his ninja skills were so cunning that I wasn't able to capture him in a picture the whole night! I ended up having to catch him off-guard back at the house-unaware!

Alex helped with the Trunk or Treat by making popcorn for most of the night.



Austin dressed his car up, too! With the help of some left-over vinyl flooring from his room, some cardboard & paint and a few records off his bedroom walls! He even had some 50's music playing all evening. He created a little game with ping pong balls. In the center was a coke glass that the kids had to try to get the ping pong ball in by tossing. If they did - they earned 3 pieces of candy. If they tossed their ping pong ball into one of the cars from Cheeburger Cheeburger- they earned 2 pieces of candy. If not either of those...well of course they still got to take a piece of candy! Austin created his car with the help of some of his friends. But he did most of it on his own. (He even paid the entrance fee himself!)




I did the craziest thing I've done in a VERY LONG TIME on thursday night...the night before the Trunk or Treat event. Adam and I and the kids went to Walmart at a little after 9pm on Thursday night (following Alex's first drama performance at CCA). We decided there that I would make elf costumes for our "trunk". So, when we got home I began creating 3 costumes :-)...I finally put myself to bed at 5am.

You see, I thought sure that the "scrubs" pattern that I used would be so quick and easy that it wouldn't be a problem at all! Well, have you ever tried to sew on a collar in a v-pattern? OK...that wasn't so easy...3 tries for each, Adam's and Mine! You'd think I would get it after once! NOT! I also altered the patter a bit adding 12 inches to Adam's and 11 inches to mine. Thus making it a "dress" kind-of...yes..Adam wore a dress! Ha Ha! Thanks Babe for being willing to go along with me!

The final touch was the pom pom balls that are sewed all the way around the bottoms of all three costumes and the sleeves of mine. Aaron wore girls tights...and I wore the old fashion uni suit that my mother-in-law gave us for Christmas when Aaron was an infant. (yes, that would be about 10 years ago!) It worked great! And I stayed warm! Thanks Lou Anne!



Aaron had a job, too! He was our little personal elf! He sat inside the cab of the truck so that he could "redecorate" the trees as the kids removed the "ornaments"! He also played a key roll in encouraging all the "shy" children to crawl through the bed of the truck and come and see what was in the cab!

Adam decorated the outside of the truck and of course had the music box hooked up so all the lights blinked to the music! We started decorating at the church at 1:30pm or so. We just finished at 5:15pm. It was a lot of hard work-but we took 2nd place and won a gift certificate to "Tony's Little Italy". WooHoo! (The kids got to judge all the trunks and vote for the top 3 who would win a prize).

I Decorated the inside by hanging icicle lights from the bed cover and we laid the back seat down so the kids would be able to get from the gate to the cab through the bed. In the cab I set up 2 small Christmas trees with lights-blinking to music of course, a tree skirt & a stuffed snowman that my sister-in-law Cari, made for a gift for us several years ago.

Alex and Aaron taped string to all the candy so that we could hang candy on the trees like ornaments. Aaron's job was to continually be "decorating the trees" while the kids (and some adults) were coming through.

Our game? climb through the icicle lights-to the trees for a surprise. Each child would get to take home an "ornament"! The kids loved it! So did we!

One little boy, after crawling through the lights laid on his belly and put his chin in his hands and said, "Oh, It's soooo beautiful"! That made all the work worth it.



Here is a pictures of Austin and Elizabeth Fouse. She came home from Auburn just to help Austin with his Trunk or Treat! As the evening wore on and got colder they wore Adam's and my letter jackets from high school... I'm not sure how that fits into a 50's theme...but - in the famous last words of Adam..."WHATEVER!"

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