Halloween Happenings

Happy Halloween!

from

costume-less Holly,

a Jet Puffed Marshmallow;

Jillaire, wearing things she wouldn't normally wear together;

a Tiger, a Bag of Jelly Bellys, and Pinkalicious.

 

The above photo was taken before we left for our church Fall Festival.  Damon was in charge of it this year and worked so hard to make it really fantastic.  We started with a chili cook-off.  I won 2nd prize in one of the categories! Amazingly, the first place prizes all went to teenage boys.  After dinner there were carnival games for the kids set up in different rooms throughout the building: a cookie walk, bowling, a fish pond, ping pong toss, beanbag toss, etc.  Damon crafted an amazing fun house that regrettably did not photograph!  It began with a climbing through a tunnel that twisted and turned, then you stood up in a room where you had to balance on boards to work your way through shark-infested waters (fins were coming up out of the floor and blue tulle billowed to create water; our shark tent was in the corner).  Finally the kids had to run through Damon's gauntlet. There were two poles being turned lite a rotisserie and several cross poles tipped with stuffed animals were rotating around it. Balloons covered the floor and you had to get through without getting knocked by the spinning poles. The entire activity was a big hit. Well done, Damon.

Adah had several opportunities to dress up this year between parties at a friend's house, the church, and at school on top of Trick-or-Treating. Extra tape and balloons helped see this costume through all the events.

If you don't know Pinkalicious, you really must read the book. Maggie had it memorized at age 3. She carried the book in her school parade so that everyone knew she wasn't just a common fairy princess.

Here we are setting off for Trick-or-Treating.  Damon stayed home with Holly to hand out candy.  After having done Gunnar's tiger face make-up three times already that Halloween season (including earlier in the day to attend the girls' school parade), I persuaded him to go Trick-or-Treating as a fireman.  I was the Balloonatic.  That was the super-hero identity I created for girls camp this summer and so I wore my T-shirt and made a funny hat to attend Maggie's classroom party that afternoon and make balloon animals for the kids. For Trick-or-Treating I kept my hat on, but I wore a jacket and gloves.  It was cold!

Finally, here's the most costume I could get Holly to wear across several days and opportunities to dress up for the various events.  In the past she had really liked to put on dress-up skirts, but I couldn't get her near the little fairy costume I had.  I even tried to put this tiger skirt on her for our church party, but no luck.  I stuck a tail down the back of her pants and got half a set of whiskers drawn on her cheeks that night before she wiggled away.  I think next year she'll be ready to really join the Trick-or-Treaters.

Of course, a week later she let me put this giraffe costume on her. Go figure.