Each year two of the moms in the club, who are professional photographers, volunteer to set up a photo booth. You can get your child's picture made for a $5 donation or 2 canned goods to give to the Arlington Food Assistance Center. This year our club raised $120 and collected 317 pounds of food items. The photographers snapped a great picture of Carter in his monkey costume. I don't have the link to it yet but when I do I'll make sure to share. After we had Carter's picture made we did an arts and crafts project and ate dinner. That was about all he could handle considering he decided not to nap Friday afternoon.
On Saturday we went to pick out our pumpkins to carve for Halloween night. This is also the pumpkin patch we used for Carter's Halloween card photo opp. For several years we've have picked out our pumpkins from the patch at Immanuel Church-on-the-Hill in Alexandria. This year they are celebrating their 20th anniversary. The pumpkins are grown on the Navajo Indian Reservation in New Mexico and are distributed to Immanuel Church-on-the-Hill and over 1,300 other churches of various denominations throughout the nation. More than 20 non-profit organizations benefit from the proceeds of the sale including ALIVE!, Carpenter's Shelter, Community Lodgings and he Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry.
The pumpkin patch is open daily from 10:00a.m. - 8:00p.m. from October 6th- October 31st and is located at 3606 Seminary Road. Upon your arrival you're given a Radio Flyer wagon to pull around the patch to gather your pumpkins. They have pumpkins of all sizes, sweet treats and autumn soups.
Following the pumpkin patch we took Carter to Shirlington to go trick-or-treating. Most of the stores and restaurants were participating which was fun. A few places had special activities for the kids. Cakelove had free mini cupcakes for the kids to ice and decorate. I diligently worked to ice and sprinkle a cupcake for Carter and he ate it in a matter of seconds! The library had a few arts and crafts stations set up for the kids and Cafe Pizziolo gave away free slices of pizza and had a painting station for kids to decorate miniature pumpkins. It was a fun way to enjoy a nice afternoon in one of our favorite areas.
On Sunday we went into Del Ray and ate lunch at Del Ray Pizzeria. If you haven't eaten there you should definitely give it a try. I'm a bit of a pizza snob and I loved their pizza, especially the deep dish! They have a great bar and a lot of TV's so if you need a place where your husband can watch a game and grab a beer this is the place. After lunch we had a little time to kill before the parade got started so we walked around the shops. We stumbled across the cutest store called Del Ray Variety. It's like an old mom and pop shop with a little bit of everything. They have toys, party supplies, home decor, greeting cards, craft supplies, food, cosmetics, books, electronics and more! They're having a sale through the end of the month and offering 25% off all Melissa and Doug items. We've been looking for a wooden block set for Carter to play with and of course they had and we got it for $15! It was down a side street so I haven't come across it over the many years I've shopped in Del Ray but I'll now add it to my list of favorites.
Following our shopping spree we put Carter in his costume and marched in the annual Del Ray Halloween Parade. I never knew this parade existed until this year and it was so much fun! There were hundreds of parents and kids. Just as many people lined the sidewalks to watch the parade as there were participants. Carter got a little impatient towards the end because he was sick of riding in his wagon. He decided it would be fun to take everything out of his diaper bag, drop it on the ground, have me pick it up and hand it to him- repeatedly. Not fun!
We're (or maybe it's just me) excited about Halloween Thursday night. A few moms in the neighborhood and I are hosting a Court potluck dinner before the kids go trick-or-treating. It should be a great time for all the neighborhood families to get together and eat before their candy extravaganza! We have the absolute best neighborhood for trick-or-treating. There is townhouse after townhouse and they sit back off busy streets so it's safe for all the kids. In addition to the sweet treats I made above I'm also going to make these two things for our potluck dinner.
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| Funny Bones- PS if you make the Oreo spiders & Nutter Butter ghosts then you'll have plenty of pretzel sticks and white chocolate leftover to make these. Just purchase a bag of small marshmallows. |
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| Crescent Mummy Dogs |
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