CONTROLLING Craziness: Pumpkin painting for Halloween 2016

Two days before Halloween we finally painted our little guy's pumpkin. Actually he did all the work. I just set it up and let him have at it. Of course my youngest daughter wanted to oversee the whole thing.

I was very prepared for any mess that might ensue. Luckily this was a fairly mess free project. Who would have thought, painting with a toddler would be mess free? I laid out an old rug on the patio and then used a large box as a table. I put the paint on a paper plate, which I held and let the little guy dip into the paint and then paint onto the pumpkin.

He was very serious about his painting.

We used glow in the dark paint, and in the photo below, you can see that it really does glow in the dark. It looks better in person though.

It was a fairly warm day for the end of October which meant some bugs came out to entertain the kids. We must have had hundreds of ladybugs on the back of our house. The kids also found a colorful caterpillar.

After the pumpkin painting was done, I gave the kids a cup of water and let them 'paint' the box. As you can tell, we've had fun with this box earlier in the week by coloring all over it and in it.

You can see the pumpkins on display for Halloween night below. My oldest daughter is a Monarch butterfly, my youngest daughter is a Minion, and my little guy is a little old man. My 13 year old son was too old to trick or treat so he didn't even get dressed up. I hate it when they get too old for this fun stuff. Maybe next year I'll have a Halloween party for the two older kids so they can have fun and get lots of candy too.

My little old man did very well trick or treating. It was so cute to watch him walk with his cane, and he knew to hold out his candy bag at each house.

And here's my daughter in her Halloween skirt. She wore this to school on Halloween day. We've gotten a lot of mileage out of this skirt. She's been wearing it since she was 2! It's time to pass it on to her adorable cousin.