Happy All Hallow's Eve!

Caroline wanted to wear a dog costume this year. We found my brother's old dog ears from when he was about four years old (he's 23 now and just got married!), but we couldn't find the rest of the dog costume. So I bought brown pants and a brown shirt, and I made a tail out of felt (she is "wagging" it with her hand in the shot below, and you can see it sticking out). True to her particularity, Caroline would not let me paint a nose on her, even though she let me do it last year, along with whiskers. But I do love that she's young enough to not care what her costume looks like... she didn't mind that the ears, clothes, and tail were all slightly different shades of brown.

Her preschool had a costume parade, and even though it wasn't on her usual day to go to school, we went for the parade part of the day. Here is Caroline with her friend the paleontologist (his brother is the dinosaur a few pictures down!) after they trick-or-treated in the other classrooms as they displayed their costumes to everyone.

Thank goodness their teachers don't believe in overdoing the craziness of a Halloween party... it was just a cupcake each, and all the treats were sent home with them (where I discreetly weeded out the choking hazards and artificially colored stuff, leaving the chocolate and peanut butter treats and the pretzels).

Cecilia and Ryan watched the fun in their own costumes. After the parade and "party," we took the kids to the park where the babies napped on us and the 3 year olds played.


That evening, Chris took Caroline to a few houses on our street while I stayed home and made some cornbread to go with our chili for dinner. Cecilia rode along to see the jack-o-lanterns and watch Caroline ring doorbells. Only one neighbor offered Chris some candy for Cecilia ;)

Here is our jack-o-lantern (Dad, I swear I didn't carve it!). Caroline told Chris what shapes she wanted, and he carved it for her. This is the first year I did not carve the pumpkin... I am usually very possessive about it, trying to make detailed carvings the way my dad did for us when we were kids (his even had eyebrows and ears, usually). I'm not sure why I gave it up this year...

I hope everyone had a happy Halloween!