After a VERY long month, it was finally actual Halloween! We were definitely ready for it to be over.
Last year:
Girls’ costumes of years past:
Family costumes of years past:
Meredith stayed in her full costume for about five seconds before discarding it for the night. There was something about that hood that drove her crazy.
Samantha and Amelia’s choice of costume evolved several times throughout the months prior. At first, they were set on being fairies again like last year. Then, after a friend handed down a really pretty butterfly costume from one of her kids, the girls decided they’d rather both be butterflies. I told them they could only re-decide one more time, and their final choice was a cat and a mouse costume. I’m sure they would have chosen something else last minute if they had the choice, but I put my foot down.
Samantha the sneaky mouse.
Amelia the silly cat.
Meredith the cute owl!
GET OUT OF MY BUBBLE.
Doing their best animal interpretations.
Ever since the girls started choosing their own costumes, I’ve given up on coordinating a family costume. Jake and I decided to be Harry Potter wizards, and figured Meredith could be our Hedwig. Somehow, with two wizards and three animals, it all worked out!
Our new neighborhood so far has been awesome, with several families taking the lead on organizing get-togethers and events. During the summer, there was a huge 4th of July neighborhood block party with a rented blow-up waterslide, movie nights at the pocket park with someone’s inflatable movie screen, a cornhole tournament with a taco cart, and random potlucks and parties. Many weekends, neighborhood kids and dads (I’m assuming there’s never any moms out on the weekend because, like me, they delegate the weekend for daddy-kid time while they get stuff done or just relax!) will be out at the pocket park playing soccer or just hanging out, so the girls will go across the street and play. On Halloween, someone organized a potluck before we all went out trick-or-treating. It was fun to see all the neighborhood kids dressed up and playing together!
After the neighborhood potluck, it was time to hit the streets. Since this was our first time trick-or-treating in the neighborhood, we tagged along with our next-door neighbors so they could show us their route.
Once Meredith was shown how to ring a doorbell and say trick-or-treat, she never looked back. We’d have to go pull her out of some people’s houses because she’d just let herself right in! She was in heaven with all those people handing her candy!
There were several spooky “haunted houses,” one of which featured their teenagers dressed up like zombies and walking creepily around their front yard as kids approached. One had a creepy clown who dragged around a shovel, pacing the driveway, until a group of older kids showed up, at which point he pretended to chase them with his shovel, while they ran away screaming. Fortunately, the girls weren’t scared and just laughed, but some of the houses were a little too creepy for me!
Meredith fell asleep at one point and then perked back up 15 minutes later. She looked like a zombie herself!
Trick-or-treating in our old neighborhood was hard to beat with little kids. The houses there were a lot closer together, making it so we could hit up the entire block in no time. Here, we only did our street and the street over and it still took us a few hours. Many people were trick-or-treating themselves, so it seemed like a lot of people weren’t home, but even though the girls didn’t get as much candy as last year, they didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they were allowed to have one piece that night (Meredith probably ate way more than that because she was sneaky about it) and could pick one piece to eat per day after that, but after day three, they lost interest and I threw all of it out when they were at school. About two weeks later, Amelia asked, “Hey! Where’s my candy?” When I told her I had given it to kids who didn’t have any candy, she was so upset!
Showing off their spoils.
Happy Halloween 2017!
Lots of love,
