Let me say a word about our tradition of family themes for costumes. I swear to you, we do not force anyone to do matchy-matchy anything. They are welcome to raid the costume collection downstairs; it is extensive. They can be whatever they want. But it's tradition now and I don't think anybody wants to be left out. The difficulty is in getting 9 people to agree on what we should be. And we were really struggling this year.
Should we be '50s with poodle skirts and greasers? Bethany says yes. Should we do a steam-punk theme? Abe says yes. Should all the children be animals and Abe and I the zookeepers? I said yes. Should we be the Addams Family? What about all being fantasy characters? All dress as foxes? We just couldn't agree. Many family dinners starting around Easter centered around what we should do for Halloween.
In the end Abe called me from a costume store and declared we were going to be pirates, thanks to the inspiration from Clark's participation in The Pirates of Penzance. Abe bought a few swords and eye-patches to fuel excitement and support from the little people of the house and it was a done deal. Abe saved Halloween this year.
I kind of think she is too pretty to be a pirate.
Having to wait all day for trick-or-treating is exhausting to Faith. It seems like she gets the Halloween-blues around 4:00 pm every Halloween.
But finally the hour to commence the candy haul arrives. Clark was home to pass out candy so Abe and I had the treat of taking the kids around together for a while. We only had half of our children with us, so that counts as a date!
Meeting up with friends on the trick-or-treating route.
Elinor went around with girlfriends and we really didn't see her till it was all over.
But they were speedy and had 6.2 lbs of candy each to show for it.
We love our neighborhood for Halloween. One family grills up hotdogs for everyone, another has hot homemade doughnuts. This year was the addition of a truly spooky yard that joyfully freaked our pirates out.
When the little boys had had enough, Faith and Abe went out for a third round. Because she obviously needed more candy.
I don't know, I think she has enough.
It's obscene.
Greedy and obscene.
And I don't plan to do a thing about it.
That's not entirely true. I usually let them have at it--go hog wild on their candy for two or three days. Then it is still their candy, but I regulate it and let them have it in smaller portions. Usually, their good stuff is gone within a couple of weeks.
Clark had his friend Ben over to play Heroscape.
But his most important duty of the evening was quickly swinging the door open and frightening small children before giving them candy. He performed his duty well.
George met up with his best buddy Lincoln.
Bethany spent the afternoon with her friend Raven and then the girls and moms met up for ice cream later in the evening. I found the yummiest pumpkin shake I've had yet.
Our family rule is no trick-or-treating after your thirteenth birthday.
Boo---hiss---mean parents!
Yes, I've heard all that before, but that's how we do things. Anyway, Bethany was having a hard time as this was her first year not going. As it turned out, she discovered that Halloween is still fun to dress up and hang out with friends even without a pillowcase full of candy. She went to another friend's home in our neighborhood to watch a movie after ice cream.
Bethany and Abe had a daddy-daughter murder mystery dinner for Young Women's this week. Very fun for them.
This is Cannon going to his Halloween party for his theater class earlier this week.
Okay, now prepare yourself for my favorite picture of the season. It's George and his neighborhood preschool class at their little Halloween party.
It's almost painful to me how cute they are.
1 comment:
Wow-impressive as always!
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