halloween tricks and treats

BOO!

in case you live in a hole, i'm sure you know it's the week before halloween. i love halloween, mostly for costumes and decorations. as a christian, i've run into a lot of, shall we say.... resistance... to the holiday? for me, i am ok with the jack o' lanterns, scary fun witch things and silly ghosts. i love the colors and the excuse to decorate and invite people in. i am obsessed with pumpkins and gourds of all shapes and sizes, and the fact that they all naturally come in MINI travel sized shapes just warms my little heart. i could do without the weird plastic skeleton bones "rising" from my neighbors yards, and the 'bloody' zombie ghost skeleton things hanging from the rafters, but i only have to see those if i really look. i can instead concentrate on the funny shapes and faces carved into the stoop-perched pumpkins, and the cutesy-crafty black cats that wish me to not be a scaredy cat. halloween reminds me of being a kid, and the sights, sounds and smells bring back waves of welcomed nostaglia to me every time i walk through a festive neighborhood.

in the nature of good ol fashioned halloween, i wanted to give my small group girls a lil something to celebrate. i picked up five sugar pie pumpkins at the store, along with some chocolate cupcakes frosted in bright orange. i colored different faces on the pumpkins (no time to carve with last minute crafty ideas!) and then arranged the cupcakes with left over pumpkin-banana muffins on a new cake plate (thank you, mr. and mrs. sikora!!), with a mini pumpkin as the centerpiece. (i have about 43 million mini pumpkins and gourds floating around my house as decorations).  

i let the girls each pick their own pumpkin to take home and add a little color to their homes! and, if they aren't into the halloween thing, they can just make pumpkin pies. and hopefully bring them to group :)