The kids all wanted to dress up as Ahsoka characters for Halloween this year. They have been watching the show with Bob.
I haven't seen it but the kids and Bob told me to wear this and tell people I'm a night sister. We had to be a little loose on the characters because I wasn't about to buy 8 costumes. So some are more star wars and less Ahsoka, but everyone was relatively happy with their costumes. Penelope and Scarlett took turns being Ahsoka.
We did both a ward trunk-or-treat and went trick-or-treating and now we are swimming in candy. We also way over bought and have two giant bags that we didn't even pass out. We heard our neighborhood was popular, for trick-or-treaters, and it was. But we were expecting about twice as many kids.
The kids had a blast and saw some friends from school.
A few of our neighbors went all out with the decorations and some were giving out full size candy bars.
We also carved pumpkins.
Beatrix got to wear her costume to preschool that day and they did a little parade. I got a lot of comments about her Darth Vader costume. I guess it is unusual for a little girl to want to be Darth Vader, but she really did want to. As far as star wars goes I listed several options and she wanted Darth Vader. Then when it was time to wear her costume to school I asked if she wanted to wear one of her princess dresses and she definitely did not.
I love Halloween, but I'm also glad it is over. I don't know why but this year I was itching to get the decorations down and have the house look normal again.
We went to a couple fall festivals this year. I miss going to a real pumpkin patch or corn maze, but this is a close second. The kids wore costumes they could find around the house.
The kids participated in a potato sack race, and also a couple friendly rounds of dodgeball. We stayed longer so they could do the limbo competition. Penelope is a pro and can get down to two feet. But when it came time for the limbo the workers were letting people bend forward and letting their knees touch the ground. Everyone was able to get very low. My kids were upset about that.
The craft area was fun.
They had a few photo spots, of course all the big kids wanted a picture in front of the scary one.
Tucker wanted to dye his hair brown so he would look more like Anakin and less like someone from Harry Potter, so we had to hurry and do that the morning of the festival. I didn't get any pictures but the same night we had our ward Halloween activity. The youth were in charge and they set up some cute carnival games and we did a trunk-or-treat, Tucker and a couple of the young men made a pretty fun and scary haunted walk through area. It had scary music, a strobe light and even a fog machine. It was pretty cool.
I love Halloween, but it is a lot sometimes. I'm ready to take down our decorations for a couple weeks before we get out our Christmas things.
We went with a gas station theme this year for Halloween. Most of the kids are the inflatable gas station people. The ones that wave their arms around and are meant to draw attention. Scarlett wanted to be a gas pump, I am a car, and bob is the station attendant. Tucker refused to participate.
We made the costumes out of those plastic table clothes.
The first time the kids wore them was to the school trunk-or-treat/festival. It was hard for the kids to see in the costumes.
We adjusted them and the kids wore them again at the ward activity, which I didn't get pictures, but they were still breaking and not quite working out.
By the time it was actually Halloween no one wanted to wear them and everyone just found things we had. I understand why the kids didn't want to wear them, but I was a little disappointed that my vision didn't' really come to life how I wanted.
Scarlett even tried one on so I wouldn't have something to go with my car costume, but she couldn't see, so she didn't wear it long.
Tucker and Leon were characters from Star Wars.
We saw the perfect black cat.
Bob was out of town on Halloween day so it was just me and the kids.
We went to main base and after trick-or-treating we hung out at a friends house and passed out candy.
I didn't have nearly enough. They open up the gates to the Japanese people and it was just lines and lines of people for three straight hours. 95% of them Japanese. I think most of them come on to experience an American Halloween. They were very polite, some even giving us candy back. We got one thank you note. Many of them were older teens, and a few parents walking around with just a baby asking for candy.
Tucker and People went around base with friends, and even Scarlett a little bit. I think Leon felt a little left out of that, but he was ok.
I think everyone had a lot of fun.
Before we even drove home I threw away all the big costumes. It was so hard for us to fit in the car with all the gas station costumes, they did not need to come home. Now I get the joy of picking up hundreds of wrappers, and pull dum dum sticks off of things for the next week.
We ended up trick-or-treating three times this year. One trunk-or-treat with church, one neighborhood event and one time on base. By the third time I was pretty over it, but we didn't want to miss out so we went anyway. These pictures are from our neighborhood day. It feels like traditional trick-or-treating and it was my favorite.
Bob and Tucker hung back at our house. I love how much the decorate and get into it. This year Tucker hid up on our balcony and moved that floating banshee thing when people came up. We also had a giant spider that Bob hooked up to a remote control car, and creepy music. When people got close the spider would zoom out and scare everyone. It will be our last time doing this in our neighborhood and we are going to miss it.
Afterward the kids did the traditional trading while binge eating and watching a scary movie.
I just let them eat themselves sick until it is gone. I spent a few days picking up wrappers and half eating suckers off the floor and now it is over. I'm glad the candy has run out because it sure does make a mess.
This year for Halloween we dressed up as 101 Dalmatians. We will be wearing it again on Halloween, but our ward trunk-or-treat was last weekend, so we already got pictures.
I love to do family theme costumes! Some of the kids were happy about it and some of them weren't. But last year we did their thing, Avatar, so this year was my pick.
These costumes were so easy and cheap. I bought a 9 pack of dog ears and tails, my wig, and black electrical tape. That was it. The kids wore white shirts, and black pants that they already had. Bob and I also wore clothes that we already had in our closets.
It was fun because I got to tell everyone that sometimes it does feel like I have 101 children.
