Halloween 2011

It was another fabulous Halloween for us.

Becky picked Ally up right after kindergarten, so no After-school program for Ally (which she was thrilled about) so that Ally could rest up for the evening activities with our neighborhood friends. I came home to find them sprawled out and cuddled on the couch with Nali watching Clifford on TV.

After TV Ally went to work making Baby a pumpkin basket of her own to take trick or treating. I was pretty amazed that she constructed it all by herself and drew a jack-o-lantern face on it. (Seriously - she cut our 3 circles, glued them together at the bottom with glue stick, folded them upright to create a bowl or basket shape, then taped a strip of paper handle to it to form the handle. Becky and I were running around getting our costumes on, warm clothes and some things to bring to our hosts' house for dinner, and the only thing we did was open the glue stick and rip the tape to help her.)

Ally and mommy on our way to Liem's house for dinner. Baby is in Ally's pumpkin. Ally was afraid Baby would fall out so she moved into my bag for the rest of the night, and then there was plenty of room in Ally's pumpkin for her candy.

Had to get a picture of the smiling girl in front of the only patch of snow we have left. It snowed here a bit a few days ago. Ally loves snow.

Poised and ready to enter our friend's house. 3 dinosaurs and one more time for the record Becky is a stegosaurus, I am a corythosaurus and Ally is Buddy the Tyrannosaurus Rex from the PBS show Dinosaur Train.

Trio of tales

It took Ally a bit to warm up, but after dinner she, Liem and Thora terrorized Becky. I think the 3 kids were carnivores trying to eat Becky.

Becky said she was afraid she would go deaf between Thora and Ally's screams.

Outside after dinner ready to go trick or treating.

From left to right - Ally, Lila (who is slimer from Ghostbusters), Thora (in a black wig as Wonder Woman), Auric (Superman behind Thora), Liem (Spiderman) and River (Lila's older brother as Brinkman one of the Ghostbusters).

Then the fun began - trick or treating!

We met up with some other neighborhood friends so eventually our group was the 6 above, plus Kai (Liem's little sister as a Superhero), Olive as a punk Mermaid in the pink wig, Maya as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Max as a dragon and his sister Millie as a chicken. It was quite a group.

Eventually we started to split up and go home. Ally and Liem hit one last house together.

Ally and Liem at our house. Liem headed home with his family and we stayed outside on our front porch to hand out treats. We gave out pretzels, no candy from us.

My favorite picture of the evening.

Ally loves to hand out treats. Here she is all set for kids to come. She picked out a piece of her candy - a dum dum lollipop - her favorite.

We spent an hour trick or treating and then another hour outside handing out our treats. We gave our about 100 pieces and then ran out so we went inside and got in bed.

It was a really fun evening. And an interesting twist this year was running into a few of Ally's friends from school while trick or treating. I feel so fortunate to have such a wonderful community of friends to share nights like this with, and to live in a place that we can safely enjoy it.