What to do with leftover pumpkins:

So, Halloween's over, the pumpkin seeds have been eaten, and there was our old jack-O-lantern ready to start rotting. Do we throw it away? Not in Alaska. Last week I went downstairs to answer the phone and happened to look out our front window, and saw this!

The moose hung out and chowed down our pumpkin, minus the candle, for about 10 minutes before he headed down the street to look for some more treats. I guess moose absolutely love pumpkins. Some of our friends' pumpkins were eaten too. The moose had eaten most of our pumpkin except for the base that day, but the next day we noticed he must have come back and finished that off too. I felt pretty good about recycling our pumpkin this way--it was enjoyed by more than just our family!

Halloween

Halloween was a lot of fun here this year. The kids are starting to be old enough to be excited about wearing costumes and look forward to trick-or-treating. And the whole week leading up to the holiday they loved trying to scare anyone they could, either by sneaking up on an unsuspecting victim, repeating flipping the light switch, or disguising themselves as ghosts using whatever piece of material was handiest at the time (sheet, older sibling's clothes, towel, whatever). The kids also enjoyed painting their own mini-pumpkins while Joshua carved our big one to spooky perfection.

For Halloween itself, we went to the tri-ward Trunk-or-Treat held inside our church building held the weekend before. There was a haunted house, a cupcake walk, and some hot dogs and hot chocolate outside, if you were tough enough to hang out in the below freezing weather to eat them (we were, kind of, if you count sitting in the car toughing it out). Then on Halloween itself we did a little trick-or-treating at the mall and then down a street by our house. Unfortunately a snow storm hit that evening, so the escapade was shortened a bit by that.

A Bat, a Pirate, and Snow White

The bat didn't want to stand around for any more pictures after he finished his apple.