Halloween decor fills family’s lawn

Richard and Deanna Kendrick and their daughters, Emily, 11, and Ella, 6, stand among the Halloween decorations displayed in the yard of their home on Chicot Drive in Conway. They have about 30 inflatable Halloween decorations on display, as well as a graveyard scene, pumpkins and more. Richard Kendrick said they usually buy decorations on sale after the holiday.
Richard and Deanna Kendrick and their daughters, Emily, 11, and Ella, 6, stand among the Halloween decorations displayed in the yard of their home on Chicot Drive in Conway. They have about 30 inflatable Halloween decorations on display, as well as a graveyard scene, pumpkins and more. Richard Kendrick said they usually buy decorations on sale after the holiday.

CONWAY — The Kendrick family’s well-manicured lawn in Conway becomes a full-blown Halloween scene each year with everything from a little Hello Kitty to an imposing 16-foot grim reaper.

“It all started just because the kids liked it,” Richard Kendrick said. He and his wife, Deanna, have two daughters, Emily, 11, and Ella, 6, and live in the

Krooked Kreek subdivision off Tyler Street in west Conway.

“It started with that spider,” Kendrick said pointing to the inflatable arachnid he bought for $5 on clearance about six years ago.

Now the collection of blow-up Halloween characters is at 30, plus the graveyard, which he said they’ve “always had.”

The collection includes the cute — Mickey Mouse, Hello

Kitty, friendly ghosts and the Minions — to the macabre, including a moaning zombielike character in a coffin. Kendrick said he keeps the sound off during Halloween so the little trick-or-treaters won’t be scared. For this season, he also made a nonworking jack-in-the-box, which consists of a clown mask, which he painted, and placed on top of a PVC pipe. He made the box out of wood.

Kendrick, who owns Kendrick Fencing and is handy, also built a wooden fence around the graveyard. He said Deanna found a Halloween street sign on the social network Pinterest, and the girls painted the boards, which have names like Boo Boulevard, Witches Way, Dead End and Spooky Street.

“It’s a whole family thing,” he said of the display.

He spends a day — starting early in the morning — setting up the scene, which has grown to the borders of his side yards. He floored the attic to store all the decorations.

Kendrick said their neighbors don’t mind that the figures are encroaching into their yards. “They said, ‘Hey, put it as far as you want to go.’”

“It’s a lot,” Deanna said, laughing. The Kendricks said many of their neighbors look forward to the display, and one man around the corner brings his grandson to see it every year.

“The kids love it,” she said.

As they talked about their display, a neighbor out walking called out, jokingly, “Hey, maybe next year you could decorate for Halloween!”

Some of their new inflatables this year include Pop Goes the Evil, an animated clown jack-in-the-box, and a 20-foot-long snake with a tongue that moves from the air that inflates it.

Ella, who was just a baby when this yard-decorating started, said her favorite is the simple black cat, the smallest of the bunch. She walked by the Pop Goes the Evil inflatable display. “Hello, creepy clown, but you’re not creepy,” she said.

Emily said she likes the Pop Goes the Evil and “the huge snake over there.”

“I want to do scary, scary,” Richard said, but he doesn’t dare because of the children. The neighborhood is a popular one for trick-or-treating

on Halloween night, and people drive by the Kendricks’ home leading up to the holiday to enjoy the scene.

On this particular summerlike Sunday afternoon, the Kendricks were across the street carving pumpkins with their neighbors, a Halloween tradition.

One neighbor, Jeannie Stroth, said that despite other Halloween decorations on the street, no one tries to outdo the Kendricks — she’s thinking of getting a sign that just says “Ditto.”

Deanna said Halloween is her favorite holiday to decorate for, because “I love the colors — the colors are awesome.”

However, if Halloween’s not your thing — go by their house at Christmastime.

“We have just about as many [decorations] at Christmas — we’ve got a 20-foot snowman,” Richard said.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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