Happy Halloween 2015!

31 October 2015 –

Who's ready to dance with a skeleton and go trick-or-treating with me????

Yep! It's Halloween!!!

I think Halloween might just be my favorite holiday. [and while I'm at it, I should admit that I'm STILL not finished with the Vietnam post! Whoops.]

This year the girls took charge of some of the Halloween decorations. Okay. They put up the bats. I did the rest….but I'm grateful for the help!

Two "pumpkins" anxious and ready to be turned into jack-o-lanterns:

I'll take you on an abbreviated house tour so you can see some of our 2015 Halloween decorations:

This is MY creation:

What should I call him/her? Flying fairy monk???

Bats.

Must have bats for Halloween! The girls helped put these suckers up:

I love bats in real life too. I'm not sure if the girls feel the same (I think they do…they eat mosquitoes! What's not to like about that???)

The kitchen…is road down memory lane with drawings done by Kirstin, Kristian, and me (when we were much, MUCH younger):

There's my Spidey!
Pumpkin patch nestled under the trees:

Here is Ava's contribution to our new Halloween decorations:

I love this wreath. I made it many years ago- using Annika's foot prints for the ghosts and fist prints for the pumpkins. I'm thinking that maybe I should make another one. I bet it'd be a much bigger wreath!

Ava's white board drawing (RIP Bones, Janet and Joe…who are they??):

And a Halloween bear was tooting a wire saxophone Ava purchased on her recent class trip to the 798 Art District in Beijing. (is that what they call "art"????)

More bats and jack-o-lanterns:

Frankenstein's Monster sliding down the stair railing: He certainly knows how to have fun!

Do you remember the bird eyes we made out of egg cartons several years ago? This year I'm displaying them in my giant colorful Chinese vase. (They're a bit difficult to make out in this photo but they're there)

Here is Annika's room, with a gentle reminder to KEEP OUT. Hmmm…

The kitchen:

In real life I HATE spiders but I do love these muppet-like versions (I glued googley-eyes on them which turned from being monsters (sort of kidding) into muppets.

Skeletons on my fridge!

This year, heavily influenced by some book series they've read by Tamora Pierce, the girls wanted to be knights for Halloween. Our awesome friend, Lynn, helped us find costumes on Taobao. It appears there was only ONE kind of knight costume available so the girls got different shields so they didn't look like twins. Here's Annika as she's getting ready for Fright Night at the school (Friday night…penultimate Halloween celebration):

Ava at her school's after-class Halloween party:

The knight with glow-in-the-dark glasses. Naturally ALL knights have those!

Annika and Ava are working on jack-o-lantern (Wednesday night before Halloween). Annika is doing the majority of the cutting but Ava is being supportive:

Proudly displaying the guts of the pumpkin:

Ava hanging out and chatting while her sister creates their jack-o-lantern:

I'm just watching the girls working on their jack-o-lantern:

Meet Mr. Snaggle-Tooth:

Very impressive!

On Halloween, David, Lynn and Mumu joined us for a few festivities. They carved this pumpkin (Mark has photographic proof!):
Doesn't it look like the Wide Mouthed Frog???

😉

On Halloween, Mark helped me with the remaining decorations. He created the Mummy Door using paper and tape we already had at home. I love this decoration! How can that not make you smile????

Do you see two out of my three skeletons? I've got one on each floor. They're our protectors. (I'm not kidding.) I'm also working on a red yarn spider web on the top floor landing. I think Mark has a different photo of the finished web with its giant spider (but that's not this one):
And here's Bones, the third skeleton. He's attempting to ride Ava's bike while getting a snug snake hug. Hee hee hee!
And getting back to David and Lynn's Halloween visit, here is Mumu dressed up in an Elmo costume ready to go on her first candy looting expedition (I mean trick-or-treating):

Here's one of our brave and dashing knights:

Three girls: two big girls ready to go to battle the Candy Demons and one little Elmo:

And here's a rare photo…it's me, dressed up for Halloween!

Annika let me use her special black cloak (which Mark sewed for her last year out of the silk we bought in Cambodia). I'm either the Grim Reaper or a Dementor….or maybe I'm a witch. Or just a crazy person? I didn't need a costume for the last one though. 😉

We're walking over to the neighborhood Halloween party. Stephanie, a sweet & thoughtful American mom created two pinatas for two different age groups to bash to bit (yay for letting out your aggressions and anger on a piñata using a baseball bat) AND she also arranged a safe trick-or-treating route for all the kids.

Annika, that's NO way to use a shield!!!

People watching…lots of friends and neighbors gather in a local park getting ready to celebrate Halloween.

Ava….

It's Ava's turn to try and smash the piñata:

Cutest little Elmo with her mom dressed as a Panda:

Apparently Mumu did not at all appreciate the kids trying to bash, smash, destroy the piñata. She cried as the other kids were hitting it. I think once she realized there was candy inside she became okay with the idea and she and Lynn even got to take a swing at it with the bat. Just for reference, piñatas are not part of Halloween tradition- they're just a fun game to play.

Ava's turn to whack at the 10 and under Piñata:

I'm not sure who this cute little fella belongs to but it sure made me smile…along with Mark's "third eye".
Ava, Renata (in a black wig) with her daughter Misha:
Now the bigger kids (11 and up) get a shot at beating up the poor, innocent piñata. Here is Annika gives it a shot at smashing it open (Stephanie did an excellent job making them super strong! Each child got to hit the piñata twice before they broke open…Impressive!):

Get it! Get it! Get it!

Always room for a first…Mark and I sort of dressed up for Halloween! Sort of….well, better than nothing, right?

Chatting it up with Lachlan (he's in the blue suit. Absolutely no clue what he's dressed up as…I just recognize the color blue. 😉
Thank You Flowers to Stephanie. Thanks for arranging all of this!!!

Mumu's first ever trick-or-treating event!

Chant with me…Candy, Candy, Candy, Candy, Candy!!!! The kids had a blast going door-to-door (at homes on our route) and grabbing candy. Most kids forgot to say "trick or treat". Wonder if that's just an American thing?

I raced back home to get ready for was hopefully a hoard of trick-or-treaters that were about to descend on our house. Bones here kept me company while I waited:
And watched as a bunch of kids just walked past our house! NOOOOO!!! Come back! Don't you want candy???

Thankfully someone steered the hoards to our house….and one friend took a photo of our house. Mark installed the green laser on the second floor to light up my skeleton who is sporting a pirate hat:

The day's events proved to be a little much for the smallest member our our party (that being Mumu). I think all the activities and candy had her at near melting down stage just before dinner. We had hoped to take our friends out to a local restaurant for dinner but our friends (wisely) declined as they took Mumu home. I hope they had a good time!

Even though this year we didn't host a Halloween party, I still had to make cute Halloweeny treats. I just can't help myself!

That's a bunch of eyes watching you!

The fudge brownie cupcakes have Oreo and m&m eyes that are watching your every move. Am I the only one that is thinking of the poem "The Carpenter and the Walrus"???

And here are cookies shaped like candy corn:

I made these cookies for Mark's English class at work. Apparently they were a big hit!