Spooky......

Halloween in Victoria arrived rainy, windy and cold. While Greg was out battling the elements on his bike in the morning, the kids and I spooked up our house a little by making cotton ball and tissue ghosts. The kids were excited, Teia in particular, as she declared Halloween her favorite holiday. Truth be told, any holiday is her favorite holiday.

Our kids have always enjoyed dressing up, and the candy part, but they've never been much into the spooky part of Halloween. They have yet to dress up as zombies or wear vampire teeth or fake blood. Our neighbors really spooked up their front yard and the kids had been peeking out the window at it all week. They had excitedly declared it would be their first stop on Trick or Treat eve. So I thought maybe this year, they'd get into the spooky a little bit.

They donned their costumes: Teia, a ferocious lion and Kai, a white school bus (yep, another box costume). As promised they did hit our neighbor's house first and were quite brave about the whole thing (it wasn't dark yet). Teia zoomed from house to house while Kai lagged behind a bit cautiously. We were a bit surprised by how well she did with some of the spooky yard displays but it seems chocolate is a great motivator. Sometimes Kai would wait to make sure nothing was going to jump out of the door and once he was reassured by a plain clothes adult and a bowl of candy, he'd scoot up to join his sis.

Trick or Treating in Fairfield where all the houses are old means steep, wet, slippy staircases at just about every house. This definitely got old. We held our breath each time Kai came down wearing the bus box that obscured his view of his feet. Eventually, the scary houses, (and people in some cases), and the steep stairs wore our little lion and bus out and they were ready to go home. But they made nearly an hour this year which is quite an improvement on previous years.

By the time we made it back to our house, fog from the ocean had rolled in and our house looked impressively spooky.

Once we got back home the kids examined their loot while Teia enthusiastically answered the door, doled out candy and wished everyone a happy Halloween. Bigger kids kept telling her how adorable she was; I'm sure that added to her fun. When we were running low, she topped up our supply from her own stash of candy. We were happy to see her getting rid of all the candy with artificial dyes but stopped her once she started adding the mini-chocolate bars. They weren't going anywhere but our tummies if she didn't want them.

When we ran out, she thoughtfully made a sign.

Kai was contemplative about the evening in his usual style, pondering why kids who were younger than him, didn't find all this Halloween stuff so spooky, like he did.

I'm not sure why they weren't scared of this guy.....I thought he looked pretty creepy.