Tis the Halloween Season

Halloween is our favorite. 

We dress up as a family every year. 

We were the characters from Grease last year.

It's a whole thing we're known for.

But we really haven't been big on decorating for Halloween. 

We aren't into the scary scene of the holiday.

We have new neighbors with two little boys that come over and make Monte and I want to be better at all the fun things, including decorating for Halloween.

Monte has ALWAYS wanted inflatables for our yard for Christmas.

Not anything subtle, 

if an inflatable could be subtle.

No, Monte wants the Santa riding a motorcycle inflatable. 

Does Santa have tattoos?

Or Santa hanging out of the door of an Airstream inflatable.

Neither have ever fit into my outdoor decoration plan for the Christmas holiday.

The last few years, we've noticed a big decline in trick or treaters at our house.

We are close to the end of our street and I think kids have been turning around instead of walking all the way down to our end.

Monte suggested we needed something 

big, 

in the yard, 

a visual perhaps, 

to get the kids excited to keep on walking.

An inflatable.

I agreed only if I got to pick it out.

It's the only one that made sense.

Especially sense I found Monte looking at this one on display at a store months ago.

I can't even.
Too many questions.

We've been waiting forever to put up the dinosaur and decided this weekend was the time.

My parents were in town so my dad helped Monte.

He's 7 feet tall and lights up at night.

Our neighbors told their kids Monte is inside the inflatable.

I also decided to paint a few boards to decorate the front of the house.

I picked up precut four foot boards from Lowe's and painted them black.

I printed out one letter per page and used an exact knife to cut them out.

I thought I would stencil the letters but I didn't use card stock and thought the computer paper would let the paint bleed. I just traced the letters I cut out with a gel pen and then painted them white.

I propped the boards up on either side of my front door.

I also decided to make a new wreath out of eyeballs that I ordered from Amazon.

Note:  the eyeballs came with four Halloween plastic cups. 

I think I unknowingly ordered a spooky beer pong set.

I hot glued the eyeballs to a grapevine wreath I already had.

Yes, we still have the ancient door with the three windows.

It's been a big hit.

We decided to carve our pumpkins Friday night since the squirrels had already started.

Ellie decided to paint hers and one for McDaniel who is away at college.

She used glow in the dark paint for the BOO.
 I keep forgetting to look to see it glowing at night.

It's candy corn!

Monte went with the Kit Kat commercial carving design. You know, the whole "I'm sorry for what I did to your face" one.

Monte's

Kit Kat's.

I attempted to carve a T-Rex head and was really sorry for what I did to his face until I saw it lit up.

Then I wasn't sorry at all.

We had a bit of wind last night and Ellie and I decided to watch the inflatable since Monte was running an errand.  When we watched him do the splits, we decided it would be a good idea for him to spend the night in the garage so he wouldn't end up blowing all over the neighborhood looking like a Macy's Day Parade float.

On top of being the house with the inflatable, Monte also insisted on buying full size candy bars to hand out this year.

It's on, Halloween! We are ready!!