Happy Halloween 2018!

Halloween 2013:

A classic from 2013. Amelia is the unhappy one.

2013, 2014, 2015:

2015:

The infamous fairy pout faces of 2016:

2017:

One year later!

2017:

2018:

Choosing our Halloween costumes is always an ordeal. There’s a sweet spot on choosing costume timing in which Halloween is close enough that the girls can’t change their minds a million times, but far enough away that there’s still time to look for a cheap costume or borrow one from someone else. When asked what they wanted to be, the twins said they wanted to dress up as the same thing as last year, which would have been fine, but I gave them a few magazines and pre-selected photos from Pinterest I printed out to give them some more ideas anyway. Sadly, they did not choose the 50s family theme I was hoping for! I thought they would all look adorable in poodle skirts, but alas, I think the family themed costumes are a thing of the past for us! At least Eleanor didn’t have a choice, and was forced to wear her baby poodle skirt to our school’s Grease-themed annual dinner.

Someone in our neighborhood was selling a beautiful Chasing Fireflies peacock costume, so even though that wasn’t Samantha’s original choice, once she saw it, she said yes! One down, three to go.

Eleanor had two costumes– one was a 50s baby costume complete with poodle skirt, which matched mine and Jake’s. We doubled up our Halloween costumes to go with the theme of the school’s annual dinner, Grease, to get some more use out of them. I was fully intending on having Eleanor wear her poodle skirt for Halloween as well, until I saw this hilarious baby pineapple costume at Carter’s. She’s only a baby once, so pineapple it was.

Amelia saw an angel costume she fell in love with. But two weeks before Halloween, as soon as she saw Meredith in her ladybug costume, she proclaimed she didn’t want to be an angel anymore, and wanted to match Meredith. Exasperated, I suggested a bumblebee, and told her that was fine if she wanted to switch, but that the money for the additional costume was coming out of her own money! She agreed to the deal and thus, she became a bumblebee.

Grammy came to town and with her help, we carved our pumpkins the day before Halloween.

Eleanor was bored.

Having Grammy around made getting ready a lot more manageable. After school, the girls changed into their costumes, we did hair and makeup and got ready to go to our neighborhood block party/potluck, while Grammy stayed home with napping Eleanor.

We filled up on chili, taquitos, snacks and hot dogs and admired our neighbors’ cute costumes.

I had too much fun pressing “bounce” on my phone.

When Eleanor woke up, we forced the girls to take more pictures before heading out for trick-or-treating.

I think Jake took his character a little too seriously.

Our town becomes one loud, giant party on Halloween, with tons of kids and parents out on the streets, making it so fun and festive. We were even named California’s best town in which to trick-or-treat! 

Meredith had no fear and caught on to the trick-or-treating concept pretty quickly. She had no qualms about entering people’s houses for a look around, either. The twins have always been sufficiently scared of random people that I’ve never been worried about them talking to strangers, but Meredith is another story. She’s a little too friendly!

I love seeing our neighbors’ costumes, so I took a turn answering the door and handing out candy, while the girls, Jake and my mom trick-or-treated with some of the neighborhood kids around our block and then my mom traded with me so that I could go out with the girls. It was the best of both worlds!

Baby Pineapple thought everyone being out so late and in such strange costumes was highly entertaining, until she became glassy-eyed and sleepy from all the excitement. Jake took her home to go to bed while the girls and I ran around to more neighborhoods.

Our town does a Haunted House/House Decorating contest each year and puts out a map so you can find all of them. The girls are still a little young for most of the scary ones, but we did check out our neighbor’s haunted house up the street that they do every year. Last year they had evil clowns with chain saws, and had the same this year.

As we approached, we saw a pack of tween boys screaming and running for their lives as an evil cackle and revvvvvv of a chainsaw echoed in the background. I asked the girls if they wanted to get candy from the house, and they were all gung- ho about it, walking nonchalantly passed the evil clowns and taking their candy. I overheard one of the clowns laughing to another clown, “Did you see those little girls!? They just walked right past me like it was nothing!”

While trick-or-treating, I told the girls they could eat two candies, but I’m pretty sure Meredith snuck in about ten. She was so wired! And so began a month of the girls sorting their candy and picking one out each day for a treat until I got so sick of it that I told the girls I had given their candy away to kids who didn’t get any candy, after which they cried for a day.

Lots of love,