Here we go…all of the Halloween photos have been downloaded. And I am going to do costumes, pumpkins, and Halloween all-in-one today. Then tomorrow…on to the next season!

We didn’t get a chance to do our pumpkins until Friday afternoon. Nothing like cutting it close. Em was pretty excited about “gutting” them this year. Addie wanted nothing to do with them.

Em also drew her face on the pumpkin and Daddy cut it out exactly the way she drew it. Hers is the 2nd one from the right. Addie wanted a heart nose (like hers!), so that one is hers. The surprised pumpkin was mine and Daddy got all artsy with the black cat on his!

Then…FINALLY it was time to don the costumes on and get to trick-o-treatin’! We started pretty early, so we got to be home for the bulk of the kids. We just went around the block which is still more candy than they can (or will!) eat until well after Christmas.

There was one house, I guess the guy works on special-effects in the movies and his house is always terribly scary. When we walk past it to go to Ad’s school, Em always calls it the “haunted house” but it is also the home of one incredibly friendly little kitty who runs up to the girls to get love whenever he is out. It’s a tough dilemma…gory body parts….or cute cat? Most of the time the cute cat wins out. But on Halloween night they had the fog, the scary music, nothing but candlelight – the whole works. Em refused to go up to the door. Even with promises that we would go along.

Addie, on the other hand, had figured out that you had to make it to the door to get the goods! She marched up there (making sure I was at her side, of course) and the guy who lived there kept telling her that she was so brave so she should get extra. I think he put five handfuls of little candy bars in her bag.

Of course, when we were walking home from church on Sunday (and various other times over the past few days) she reminds us all, “I was so very brave at the haunted house, wasn’t I? Emma didn’t want to go up there, but I did and got LOTS of candy!” Stinker.

So, the girls liked getting the candy, but REALLY liked getting to hand it out, as you may have seen in my BSM yesterday. The loved to see the costumes and some of Em’s friends from school came to the door, too. That was really fun.

And now for the costumes. I loved how Addie’s turned out. It looked really cute on her. She loved the wrist loop that allowed her to hold her tail and walk at the same time. But she ADORES the seashell “puwrse.” She used it as her candy bag. I should have shot better closeup photos so you could see the sequins, or “sparkles” as she calls them, on her top and on the seashell.

I’m glad we just borrowed the Ariel wig from a friend, she had it on for maybe 10 seconds. Then it was tossed aside and I couldn’t get her to put it on for anything. So Ariel was blonde in our house for Halloween.

I liked Em’s costume and everybody knew that she was Alice in Wonderland right away, but apparently I think my girl is about 2 sizes larger than she really is. The dress was pretty big, but the apron sort of “held” it on. Addie’s was a little big, too – but I was (in my infinite wisdom) really just making sure they could use them for dress-up for the next year. Yeah, that’s it!

She had to carry that metal bucket as her candy collector. I think if we had been out for longer than once around the block it would have been too heavy, but she even offered to carry Addie’s bag at one point, so she did alright.

(See how big the sleeves are on her little weenie arms?)

Once we got all of the material and supplies, and got it all cut out – the sewing went fairly easy. Although slippery satin is definitely not my first choice for fabric, I might be talked into doing costumes again next year. We’ll see. Although if you ask them, they just want to be Alice and Ariel again next year. So maybe the costumes will still fit??