Batty for Halloween

Shopping for baby costumes was so fun--there were so many choices in this size!  For Marissa's first Halloween, she was a bat (cozy 9month sleeper which fits in carseat) and a bumblebee (wonderfully warm jacket she wore on morning stroller walks to school). 

Piper told us she wanted to be Tinkerbell so we borrowed the makings, but she found an Ariel dress at the resale shop and wore it over her glow in the dark skeleton shirt for preschool, then trick-or-treated on our street in a Pegasus/Horse Grandma found on sale, and went to our old neighborhood in a leftover Snow Princess dress from Grammy's last year.

Addisyn dressed as a ballerina (scavenged from her closet) for her school carnival, a pumpkin (from Grandma's Halloween box) for trick-or-treating, and wore a wedding dress to hang out at Grammy's, because this mommy didn't find anything better for her to dress up as this year.

Of all the week's Halloween events, my favorite was meeting neighbors while trick-or-treating on our own street.  We had about 15 kids; thanks go to our newest neighbor Sarah who put notes on everyone's mailboxes and coordinated a meet up so we could socialize while visiting about a dozen houses together (and another thank you to the houses with long/steep driveways who met us at the bottom).  It was so nice to put names and faces with the different homes--it feels so neighborly!  



These girls love getting face painted, and daddy let Marissa get hers done for the first time too.

Marissa is not scared of this singing skull

Jacob had a fireman costume he wore a few times, but refused to put on on the actual Halloween day. 

 Piper's preschool class after their parade

Marissa enjoyed stroller trick-or-treating on Paseo Fuerte (the weather must have been too beautiful to put on a costume yet).  Her sisters rolled her stroller up to the door so she could get candy too.  She loved playing with the candy, and accidentally got her first taste of chocolate. Just look at those two bottom teeth and the notch on the wrapper!  We had to pry the candy out of her hand. 

For our house, instead of candy to hand out, Addisyn helped me make homemade play dough and we shaped them into pumpkins and halloween shapes.  We handed these out and "booBerry" juice pouches to wash down all the other candy they would get.

I didn't buy any candy this year (well, except for one bag of candy corn in a weak moment), and we now have an overflowing giant bowl of trick-or-treat candy staring at us from the kitchen counter. 

What to do with leftovers?  Use it in brownies for the preschool bake sale!  (Sad to see the *good* stuff go, but glad to use some of the stuff I'd otherwise be sneaking out of the candy bowl!)

And if that wasn't a sweet end to Halloween, I'll finish this post with the easiest craft decoration ever: Milk carton ghosts!!!!!  (Rinse empty carton, cut out label from side, draw, put in battery tea light, done.)  These were decorated by Piper and Addisyn, respectively.