Halloween 2014

Halloween continues to be a big underlying theme of October events in our household. This year, I started asking the girls what they wanted to be very early on in the fall, and Hannah wanted to be a black cat (this is not surprising--she pretends to be a cat, complete with "cat kisses," all the time). Moira said she wanted to be a butterfly. In a moment of sheer craziness, I bought DIY cat and butterfly tutu kits off of Etsy. If you know me at all, you know I am not much of a DIY-er. Nontheless, I managed to make the tutus, and you'll see the results below. However, the funniest part about my attempt at making my children's costumes is that in the end, Moira wanted to wear the "Anna" dress from Frozen with her friend Claire most of the time. She and Claire loved pretending that they were sisters from Frozen, and thankfully, Hannah was too in love with her cat costume to mind much. 

We had a great time at ZooBoo this year with the Charlton family (Jack was a character from Minecraft and Claire was Elsa). It was a beautiful day, and even though it was crowded, no one seemed to mind. We walked all around the zoo and participated in practically ever activity there was to join in on. I think the highlight remains the new orangutan center where you can get up-close and personal with very large and friendly orangutans.  

The following weekend on another beautiful and relatively warm fall day, we went to the Irvington Halloween Festival, which is continuing to grow in popularity. This year, it was very crowded because of the amazing weather. As you can see below, the girls decided to travel via bike trailer with Grandma and Grandpa. This is the only day where they both wore the costumes I had made, and Alan did the makeup (he is so artistic--everyone always thinks I do these sorts of things, but it would not be pretty if I were in charge of something like that). 

At the festival, the girls had fun playing in the bounce houses and seeing their friend, Fletcher (Sarah and Dave's son). They also had fun with their Aunt and Uncle Scott, and an old friend, Larisa, who was in town. Hannah had some somber and pouty moments as well, which were too cute. Uncle Scott did a fantastic job (as always) of capturing those moments on camera. 

As the actual night of Halloween approached, we had one important task left to accomplish--getting our Jack-o-Lanterns finished. Daddy was the lead on this project and did a great job of carving with a little bit of help from me and the girls. The girls picked the patterns they liked, and Alan did a fantastic job of executing. I love the photo of the girls with their pumpkins below because whenever I use a flash, Moira grimaces. It's so cute!

Of course, the night of Halloween was very cold and very wet. Nonetheless, we made the best of our first Halloween in our new neighborhood (last year we went to the Charltons' house). It turns out that our neighborhood is a great place to do trick-or-treating. Lots of people are really into decorating for Halloween (as you will see at one of the houses below), and most of our neighbors had their lights on to let us know they were willing to have the kids trick-or-treat at their house.

We were literally running around with gloves and hats and umbrellas as the rain started to turn to sleet and even a bit of snow. Unsurprisingly, Hannah lasted trick-or-treating at about 5 houses before turning to me and saying that she wanted to go home. Jack, Claire, and Moira lasted a bit longer, but we picked them up in the car (in our own neighborhood because it was so cold) and drove to visit a friend in another part of the neighborhood before heading back home. Despite the weather, it was still a fun night, and the kids loved going through all of their candy that they collected at the end.