trick-or-treat

But first, dinner at Noodles and Co.

"Mommy, are we at Halloween, yet?" ~Ben, as we got ready to park the car to trick-or-treat.

Hope is a movie theater floor. Candy wrappers, spilled sodas, tickets, and whatnots attached to her black outfit. Clara is a witch, Emma is Jasmine, Abie is Dash Incredible, Ben is Peter, King of Narnia (he sounded adorable telling people this), and Lydia is a zebra.

We don't live in a neighborhood, so we trick-or-treat in the neighborhood next to Billiam's office. Most houses are decorated with at least a little something and some houses are completely decked out. One resident had already passed candy out to over 600 kids by the time we got to his house. That's a lot of peanut butter cups.

One house has tons of decorations...each window has shadow shades up, music, a graveyard in front with tombstones and various limbs sticking out of the ground, corpse with stomach open to reveal spaghetti-like innards being eaten by a crow, big ol' wrap around porch with dummies and owner with candy, fog, etc. Anyway, next to their car, which has life-size monsters inside and hanging out the windows, was a big stuffed ghoul of some sort. Then, as people pass by, it suddenly moves and reaches for them. It's an actual person in amongst all the stuffed ones. They got me with that one, again, this year.


As an added bonus, there are shops and restaurants at the edge of the neighborhood where Jake was meeting up with a few of his friends.

By the time we got home, all of the kids were asleep and had to be woken up to come in the house. Well, except Ben and Lydia. I can still carry them.

And when Emma wakes up in the morning, she will be nine.

halloween parade at school

Dash Incredible was in the house, happy to pose.

Jasmine was there, wishing she had a pair of shades.

A masked man appeared on the roof, bringing squeals of glee from the kids.

The weather here at this time of year is such a crap shoot. Last week the kids would have been freezing in the cold, windy weather. Today they're roasting in the 70's. I predict sweaty kids tonight before we hit the second block.

vegetable of the day: candy corn

Happy Halloween.

my son, the (punk) rock star

From his band's Halloween show over the weekend.

weekend o'things

Two parties, another college visit and another party. Lots going on.

If you get a chance, pop over to my friend's blog and wish her luck--she is on her way to Vietnam to get her baby girl!

For now I'll leave you with a pic from the Halloween parade the other day. Ben is wearing a knitted crown from the Interweave Knits online paterns. How cool is it to find a use for a wee bit of yarn you've been holding on to for years? See, honey? I told you I need it all!

and we're off...

(click on pumpkin)