These days, Halloween is a month-long festivity. On October 17th, Harry Potter showed up at our house, reminding us slightly of Tally Wally.
Crookshanks also appeared at a Harry Potter party being held at Half Price books.
Watch out, Harry! Looks like Snape came too. (Hard to recognize, but Snape is the same height and build as Talia's good friend Adelle.)
Here we have Crookshanks and Walden in their flying car. Watch out for the Whomping Willow!
Annika wanted to go for a spin too. (Don't you love the mouth already full of Honeydukes candy?)
Here's the whole gang sitting intently during Potions class. Our Hermione (Brooklyn) won the store-wide Harry Potter trivia contest three times in a row. Her character choice seems quite fitting.
Earlier in the afternoon we'd been at the Holland Performing Arts Center to celebrate its tenth anniversary. Don't you love Eli and Annika rocking out? Too bad they can't simulltaneouly scale the wall like Bandaloop, the amazing performers we saw.
The kids' art section was fantastic.
Eli's watercolor revealed a secret message: *TAR WA**. Any guesses?
Annie's favorite thing to do at the zoo is watch the gorillas. Sometimes, however, it's the gorillas who are watching us.
Costume time! Annie found this adorable pumpkin that Callie originally wore and decided it was time to DANCE.
The adorable pumpkin and little Jedi made their way to Alley Poyner for some trick-or-treating at Jason's work.
The Hogwarts students must have worked some transformation magic, because before you knew it, our pumpkin had morphed into a poodle. No better costume for trick-or-treating at Papa Kay's law school!
Even though the was in session, Talia got to attend the festivities because we'd kept her home from school for the day. While she didn't actually feel that sick, we decided that the morning's diagnosis of walking pneumonia was reason enough to use caution.
After all, we didn't want Tally to take after Dusty Bones! Here's Annika (now a ladybug) at the ward Halloween party. Jason somehow ended up in charge of the chili cook-off and Trunk-or-Treat. Definitely stressful, but everything came together really well in the end.
I couldn't resist taking a picture of Alyson (Keiser) Roudebush and her little giraffe. Too cute!
No Halloween would be complete without the requisite school celebration as well. I love how each class at Crestridge decorates pumpkins to auction off at Parent Teacher Conferences. Here's the 5th grade contribution: R2D2, Chewbacca, and C3PO
Senora Jacome's third grade class created an adorable minion vampire.
Meanwhile, Eli's kindergarten class themed their pumpkin after the Day the Crayons Quit.
After dealing with a last minute poopy diaper (WHY isn't Annie potty-trained?), we made it to the school with barely enough time to help Anakin put the finishing touches on his costume. The parade took off so quickly that I barely caught a picture of my Padawan before he was gone.
Time sure flies! Thirty seconds later and Anakin's daughter Princess Leia passed by, looking remarkably like our friend Johanna. Notice Darth Vadar's right behind her.
Here's Senora Jacome looking awesome in green.
Hey, it's Harry and Hedwig again with Snape right on their heels.
Normally one to follow every rule, Hermione slipped out of line to give her baby sister a big hug.
Even though the 31st hadn't arrived yet, our family already had way too much junk candy hanging around. I decided I was going to be brave and take a stand, offering a non-sweet treat at our door as opposed to more sugar.
When Halloween finally arrived, an Anonymous Dilbert stopped by to crash the party.
Can you believe it? He showed up with Tic Tacs.
Uh oh! Looks like Dilbert shrank.
Back to full size, our Anonymous Guest came inside to observe the pumpkin carving fun.
After posing as a wizard at Half Price Books, the church, her school, two work parties,and Girl Scouts, Talia decided she wanted to take a turn as a witch.
She certainly made an adorable one. The fall weather on Halloween was positively marvelous. Even though it wasn't cold, we built a bonfire in the front yard to sit around while folks dropped by. Talia liked passing out treats so much that she bypassed some of her own trick-or-treating to help Papa Kay distribute. (By the way, despite making over a hundred glowsticks, we quickly ran out and had to resort to regifting some of the Halloween candy we'd already received. There's one way to have less sugar floating around the house!)
An hour before trick-or-treaters showed up, I finally got around to decorating the porch.
Look who joined the celebration? Can somebody please get that dog a bone.
While our house was fun, it was absolutely nothing compared to our next door neighbors' elaborate haunted house. I kid you not, even in broad daylight it scared me enough that I crossed to the other side of the street to pass by. Later that evening, the kids informed me I'd been rude, so I probably should stop by some time to apologize. But seriously, what would you do if you knew a guy was waiting around the corner to scare you with a chainsaw?
Fortunately, despite all the spooks and ghouls, our home was well-protected with Dilbert around to keep the peace.
What a lovely place to call home!
Hope your Halloween was also a happy one.
Fun as the Halloween season was, I'm personally ready to move on: Annika is not. Today she found an empty treat bag and threw a huge tantrum when I wouldn't take her trick-or-treating. After such an extended season of begging for candy, it's understandable that she should expect the fun to continue. But alas, all good things must come to an end. For the sake of our waistlines, may I add, thank goodness. Keep smiling!
