Happy Halloween!

Happy Belated Halloween!

Nana Jana provided our Halloween door decorations (which I tried to preserve by carefully peeling off and sticking on a folder on November 2nd, but they may not make it til next year) as well as Leah's costume. I think it's supposed to be a fish, but she she said that she was a butterfly with a beautiful hat, so we just rolled with it. I was afraid she'd be cold trick-or-treating (notice the snow on the pumpkin!) but she was sweaty when I took her costume off at the end of the night, so maybe I went overboard with the fleece and multiple layers of pants.

Amelie has a tradition of dressing as characters that no one is going to recognize (also putting together costumes that are mainly just clothes). This year she was Evangeline from a cartoon/anime called Wakfu that they've been watching recently. She's wearing elf ears, she has her hair in a braid, she has a magical bow, and we cut up a green t-shirt and fixed up my boots for the ensemble.

Picture for reference: 

She's also wearing several layers of clothing due to cold weather. I'm continuing a trend of dressing up as food, since I borrowed this fantastic hotdog from my friend Sam! Everyone who came to the door got a big kick out of it. (And my spouse Sam told our neighbor Lavonne that I was home passing out candy with this costume on, and she wanted me to text her a picture - and then she sent me one of her grand-puppy in a hotdog suit in return!) 

Despite getting a Spiderman costume and two (TWO) different Spiderman masks, at the very last minute, James dug through the costume drawer and decided to go as a "muscle guy." (He did some push-ups before the photo shoot.) He's got a headband, a medal around his neck, and a belt. The muscles come from the Spiderman costume underneath.

Here's the Spiderman/Miles Morales costume -- that he's worn a half a dozen times (just not on the actual night of trick-or-treating). 

Here's the group of kids who went out - they couldn't wait for it to get dark and started around our block about 6:30 after eating some crudites. I stayed home and passed out candy while we blasted the "Family Halloween" pandora station on our lawn.

They came back after our block and ate some pizza and more vegetables (really!) Amelie dumped her pumpkin out so she'd have a clean slate. James refused the pumpkin from the start -- those are for amateurs -- and went and got the pillowcase off of his bed. He was on to something, though, since he nearly filled it up and got the most candy of everyone. 

Here's a picture with our grown-up friends/teenage mutant ninja turtles: 

Leah and Sam stayed home after that and the rest of us ventured back out again to go around the big loop. There was a haunted house with a scary Santa. He asked the kids if they'd been good or bad and they hesitated, so he brought out the "bad" bucket - filled with straws and closepins and twisty ties and paper clips. James picked out a clothespin and turned to me with the most epic "what in the Sam Hill?" face, but Amelie just obliviously grabbed a handful of junk. Later at home, she wondered, "What are all these straws doing in my candy?" Scary Santa asked the adults if we'd been good and I said, "Yes!" so he gave me a little mini bottle/shot of whiskey. Ha! 

Here are the pumpkins we carved. Amelie's is on the left and features a big round moon with ghosts underneath. James's is on the right and is a scary face. The store was sold out of the pumpkin carving kits, so we had the kids help scoop the seeds and draw the faces on and then we cut them out and roasted the seeds. School was cancelled the next day for a teacher workday, which worked out pretty nicely for us!