Another Hallowe'en in the books

We survived another Hallowe'en. By the time the witching hour arrived we were pretty burned out on it already after 2 school carnivals and Greg working into the wee hours to create yet another masterpiece costume for Kai. And this year the little man was pretty sick but determined to get out there. The only one chomping at the bit was Teia. As soon as we got home from Kai's carnival, Teia whipped off her princess costume and shimmied her way into Hallowe'en get up #3 - a mermaid. She wore a unicorn costume to her own Hallowe'en carnival last week (and has been sleeping with it ever since).

Teia was rather a fickle pickle when it came to planning Hallowe'en. She started with wanting to be a mermaid. Then became determined to be batman. This was followed by absolutely, definitely going to be a unicorn. There was a brief tiger phase. Then she wanted to be a shark. But thankfully, she decided that she would just wear each one of the costumes Auntie Karen kindly sent.

Kai on the other hand stood true to his tradition of picking something completely unique and not available in stores and sticking to it. Thank goodness he does not have the fickle gene after the time and effort Greg puts into his costumes. This one was no exception. Little buddy came down with a nasty cold but he wanted to wear his British Airways costume so badly that he made it to school anyway, even if just for a few hours, and managed a little trick or treating.

A few people mistook him for a space shuttle, but mostly his costume was very well received. He also became pretty adept at grabbing candy and dropping it into his pumpkin dangling from the end of his wingtip, all with a one handed maneuver. 

Greg continued the tradition of spending an inverse proportion of time on his costume to Kai's. This year his greatest effort was expended on finding stickers for his hard hat. If you're in the dark like I was, he explained it to me as a "Shipyard Bubba." I discovered that black is definitely not my color. Although the kids did like my new hair. Kai kept smiling at me and Teia took it in for share day at school today. 

Teia's Hallowe'en excitement turned quickly to trepidation when our neighbor at the second house we visited greeted us with a candy bowl that was complete with a talking head. From that point on she would not go up to any house until we checked first that there were "no guys." Kai decided he'd stand back too while we checked for dogs. So Greg and I became the advance party, ringing doorbells and smiling politely at confused neighbors who didn't expect such tall kids at their door, while our little ones emerged cautiously from the shadows once they were convinced that the house was "guy" and dog free. Once they felt safe though they happily trick-or-treated. Teia made sure she embarrassed us soundly by asking every single person "do you have schoclate?" Thank goodness she's cute.

They didn't last too long which was fine by us.  They were were happy to come home and gorge themselves a little bit with the spoils of their labor. Then Greg suggested to me that we take a trip each year in late October so we can kind of skip Hallowe'en. The man is genius. Let's see if I can hold him to it.

And here are our jack o lanterns. Pretty humble this year. I didn't even manage to go out and buy a pumpkin. One came from our weekly CSA delivery and the other two are from the pumpkin express train we rode a few weeks earlier.

So its in the books for one more year. I'm wondering if we can get Kai to think "outside the box" next year for his costume (ha ha very punny eh?) I'm sure Greg is hoping so! But I'm not sure what we'll do if he comes up with something that requires sewing......maybe I better continue to encourage these box costumes!