The Extent of My Halloween Decorations

So--usually I don't decorate for Halloween--accept for the requisite carving pumpkin extravaganza--then I have a few jack-o-lanterns--but that is where it has always stopped.  Mainly because I don't really like to store a whole bunch of decorations that I then have to rotate with the stuff I normally have out.  AND I don't really like all the cluttery nick-knack kind of stuff anyways--I'm more of a minimalist. 

ANYHOO--this year is different.

I had a few different days with bored children (thanks to our teachers declaring a LID day--which means no school for the kids)--and so we decided to make some Halloween crafts.

So here is what we came up with.

Day 1:  Landon (4) and I did this SCARY SPIDER craft for his "Preschool"

(I put that in quotes because Landon wants to go to school SO BADLY--but he has a late birthday--so he will do preschool next year.  So for now--we try and do some fun things at home).

Day 2: LID day plus I was babysitting a friends little guy--AND OF COURSE IT WAS RAINING OUT--so we had 5 bored little bodies in our tiny little house.  So I went to THIS site and found some Halloween craft ideas to do with kids.  And we made these:

The Batmobile:

(Get it--bat-mobile...?)

AND we made scary ghosts which we hung outside on our porch.

(They are kind of blowy in the wind--so it was hard to get a picture of them all facing the right way!)

And then Day 3--we decided it was time for our pumpkin carving extravaganza.  To be honest--and don't faint or hate me for revealing this--I don't really like carving pumpkins.  I don't know if it is because of the mess of it all--or the fact that I am not super great at it--or that you waste a bunch of pumpkin that you spent good money for.  Whatever the reason--it is just not my favorite thing to do.

So I was ECSTATIC to come across THIS post where Lindsey gave us the most FANTASTIC IDEAS and PATTERNS to decorate the MOST DARLING PUMPKINS EVER!!! 

We still had one die hard little lady that would not even dream about NOT carving a pumpkin this year.  So we had one "Carved" pumpkin and two "Decorated" pumpkins:

Ahem.

AHEM...

That's better.

Some close ups--Skeleton Pumpkin: 

Pirate Pumpkin: 

And our "Traditional--Carved" pumpkin. 

(Love the background models!)

Ok--so you can't do this with the "decorated pumpkins":

...or this:

But I absolutely LOVED how they all turned out. 

And I love them even more with cute boys next to them.

(I especially love how my little guy is folding his arms so nicely--after ripping off and apart the pirates hat!  Just as if to say, "See--I'm not going to touch it any more!")

We have already made big plans for next years DECORATED pumpkins...and maybe a few other hand crafted decorations. 

We'll see.