More Halloween Fun

Halloween is my favorite holiday.  I think what I love about it the most is dressing up and decorating... the candy is pretty great also.  This year I went to a which hat party with a friend.  Lots of the girls made their own hats.  My friend even made a really cool sea which hat; she won a prize for the most creative hat.  I thought about making my own, I even went to the dollar store to buy supplies, but when I got there they had a cute hat that was very similar to the one I was going to make.  So I just bought mine, but I like it anyway.

We spent some time before Halloween trying on costumes and Bob even put together a dinosaur cage for Calista and Beatrix.

7/11 had some Halloween food out.  These sandwiches were whip cream and a chocolate spread.  Pretty good, but absolutely no nutritional value.  I walked to the convenience store and bought them for the kids for dinner because bob was working and I was tired.  The kids loved it.

I didn't get enough pictures of us carving pumpkins this year.  My piano teacher mentioned that she had never done it before so I invited her over.  She was really funny and talked about how it is harder than playing the piano.  She made a ghost that turned out cute, although the lid to her pumpkin fell  straight down, inside her pumpkin.  I tried to explain before she cut the lid how to angle the knife but there is a slight language barrier and I guess she didn't understand.

The older four kids all did their own with little help.  It was so much more enjoyable that way.  Tucker's pumpkin was eating another pumpkin, Scarlett wanted circles on hers, Penelope made Tinkerbell, Leon a bat, and Calista "carved" a cat.

Beatrix's first food was a candy bar.  We still haven't given her any solid food but I found her under Calista's seat sucking on a Hershey's bar.  Calista opens her candy takes a bite, throws it down, and goes for another piece.  After trick-or-treating we had a huge mess of candy and wrappers for a few days.  It was a mess because Beatrix now crawls around and I don't want her getting either of those things.  I guess when you are the sixth baby, your first food is whatever you find dropped on the floor from the other children. 

Trick-or-Treat

Dressing up for Halloween was a blast this year!  We were the characters from Jurassic World.

I usually try to make costumes or find really cheap ones.  But not this year, I really just wanted to buy costumes for all the kids and not care about spending a ridiculous amount of money for one day and that is exactly what I did.  It was awesome!

We first went to our ward trunk-or-treat activity and it was fun.  We ended up doing it inside the gym, so I guess no trunks were even involved, and it was hot.  The kids kept wanting to take their costumes off but I made them wear them so there was a bit of contention there.

Bob and I were Own and Claire from the movie.

The next night we went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood.  The weather was perfect.  It was great.  The type of night Halloween dreams are made of.  

Great costumes, tons of candy, and a lot of fun.  Whomever wants to participates puts up signs and someone even makes a map.  So we don't waste any time going to houses and waiting for no one to answer the doorbell.

 We got an early start because last year we had an issue wearing all black in the dark.

I thought it was particularly hilarious watching the dinosaurs gather round a candy bowl like they were feasting on prey.

It was so fun watching the kids waddle around.

As we were walking around the kids got a lot of attention and we kept having to stop to pose for strangers pictures.  They did not like that.  I don't think anyone in the neighborhood realized I was dressed up also.

We came home to a very crowded house.  Bob stayed home with Beatrix to pass out candy and it was crowded!  I think a lot of people come to our neighborhood to participate in the Halloween fun.  We had some great music and decorations.  Bob and Tucker even rigged up a big spider to a remote control car that they would drive around and scare people.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Run 2019

I love bringing the kids to pumpkin patches and fall festivals back in the states, but that doesn't happen here in Japan.  I really wanted to do something fun that wasn't just buying pumpkins at the commissary so we signed up for the annual pumpkin run.  

It was so fun!  Normally it is a 5k, where you run to the pumpkins, choose your pumpkin, and run with it the second half of the race.  They shortened it from a 5k a little bit because of typhoon damage, but that is ok with us.  I had to walk the whole way back and some of the way there because of Calista and Beatrix.  It is hard to carry a baby and run!

Calista was so happy to pick out her own pumpkin.  Bob was the lucky one who got to carry it for her along with her (she rode on his back most of the race) and his own pumpkin.

We let the older kids go ahead of us so we only saw them in passing, but they were all really happy when we found them at the end.  They kept talking about how big their pumpkins are.   I'm pretty sure they only seem bigger when you have to carry them for a mile race.  And yes that is a lady behind them with a pumpkin in a baby carrier.

Now we get to carve them!

Beatrix is 8 Months Old

I totally forgot to post these pictures on the blog.  Oops.  Beatrix is 8-months-old and ready to go trick-or-treating.  

She is not really going to be a witch but I thought this little set up is cute.  She is ready though, we told her we needed her to be able to sit before trick-or-treating and she can do it.  I want to pull her around in a wagon so sitting is needed.

Beatrix is really a good baby.  We just love having her around the house with us.  She really isn't that much work at all and just feels like my little buddy who goes everywhere with me.

She is totally scared of strangers, which usually isn't a problem because she is with me or Bob all the time.  Whenever someone else does try to hold her it doesn't go well.  That is ok though, she is perfectly happy to look and smile at you as long as you don't get in her face and try to pick her up.

Maborikaigan Trick or Treat

This year for Halloween we all dressed up as shadows.  It was one of our easiest costumes yet.  I purchased the masks and black latex gloves.  I also bought black buckets, but I needed to buy trick-or-treating buckets anyway, so I wasn't really counting those.  For the rest of the costumes the kids just found black clothing in their closets and we were set.  It was very easy and didn't cost very much at all.

The kids were so in love with the costumes.  They had a blast trying to hide in the shadows and sneak around everywhere.  It was great.

Calista was happy to put the mask on just like everyone else, but she did not want to keep it on.  Instead she wanted us to keep putting it on her over and over again every couple of minutes.  She usually kept it on for 30 second increments and that was it.  The gloves she kept on even shorter.

Calista actually stayed home and passed out candy with Bob.  He said she loved giving out the candy and putting it into everyone's buckets.  Based on the amount of candy we passed out I'd guess we had about 200 trick-or-treaters.  Bob and Calista just sat at the front door, and although it wasn't nonstop crowds, there weren't long pauses between kids coming either. 

Leon did really well in his costume.  He was wearing what are normally his church pants, and I thought he might ruin them with crawling around and general five your old boys stuff, but it wasn't a problem.

Penelope and Scarlett had so much fun trying to trick me on who was who.  I accidentally mixed them up once and they thought it was hilarious.  They even went so far as to switch bows on me to try to trick me even more.

 Tucker was the most into blending into the shadows and kept asking me if I could see him.

Bob and I also dressed up.  I kept taking my mask off to talk to people.  I would see people in the neighborhood I knew and felt like I needed to take off my mask to say hi, otherwise they didn't know who we were.

We didn't even go to all the houses in our section of the neighborhood before we had our fill.  I think we went for about an hour and a half.  Trick-or-treating is more of an American thing and not really something that is done in Japan.  So every year someone organizes this and makes a map of participating homes.  Then those houses get a matching sign so the kids know where to stop.  It is pretty cool, there is no time wasted on waiting on doorsteps for people to answer the door who aren't home.  It isn't only the Americans who participate.  Lots of our Japanese neighbors passed out candy and walked around as well.

Once it started to get dark we headed home.  Our costumes were really too dangerous to be outside walking on roads in the dark. 

This year we also went to our ward Trunk-or-Treat event and trick-or-treating on base.  I could have easily not gone on base and I think I'll try to talk the kids out of it next year.  Three times is just too many, and our little neighborhood one is so great the base trip wasn't necessary.