Happy Halloween!

Sometimes I wonder if Halloween can possibly get any cuter. I'm really not sure it can, but each year we seem to top the previous one. This year, we geared up by pulling together our costumes ourselves (except Naomi's, as she's still in the realm of adorable one-piece toddler costumes that you can usually pick up used for $5 or $10), completing a few crafts, reading some pumpkin books and singing a certain Halloween song over and over with Naomi. Ready!

Naomi's costume was the easiest: she's known for a year or more that she wanted to be a puppy for Halloween, so it was only a matter of procuring it. Elise initially wanted to be a sheet-ghost again, which was a fantastic costume a year ago. The eyeholes, and shifting and dragging nature of the sheet, however, were not so fantastic. As she was also debating being one of her stuffed kittens (she calls them mewses), I may have gently nudged her in that direction. She chose the orange one, and we were both happy. Kalina, who has taken to answer every question lately with a very firm, yet decidedly dreamy and slightly doubtful, "maaaybe," or "I don't know..." or "What was the question?" took a little longer to decide. Yet due partly to the fact that she can do an amazing rodent voice, she chose to be a pink mouse. And so we ended up with a pet parade in our house.

While hot-gluing together felt kitten gloves didn't go so well (I steered Kalina toward pink mittens from the closet instead for her mouse costume), putting together ears and finding workable tails did. Also helpful was the fact that Naomi showed just the right amount of enthusiasm for her costume--happily donning it whenever we had a Halloween event, and just as happily shedding it when we were done (and not insisting on wearing it every day, for instance).

Naomi made pretty fall
leaves to decorate our house!

Leading up to the big day, our neighborhood's tradition is to pass around "boo bags" filled with treats and delivered in the dark so the deliverer can sneak away without being seen after ringing the doorbell. Last year we gave, but didn't receive, much to the disappointment of the kiddos when they realized that fact the day after Halloween (fortunately, some older neighbors had delivered cupcakes, so it's not like we were forgotten, as I pointed out multiple times throughout the year as they renewed their gripe). This year, fortunately, we were "booed" a few days before the big date, and were able to return the favor by sneaking up to a neighborhood friend's house and doing a really good job of hiding behind a wall. Fun!

We acquired 2/3 of our pumpkins from the garden (most of the rest having been eaten already) and Daddy was home early enough to join us for a trip to the farmer's market for the third. We carved...you guessed it...a mouse, a cat and a puppy. Kalina did quite a bit of the carving, and quite a good job of it. Elise scooped like a pro, and Naomi preferred instead to tend to her animals, although she cared enough to check in every so often and make sure her puppy pumpkin actually resembled a puppy. She took some convincing with the ears ("Puppy ears are shorter!") but in the end, we were all happy.

Kalina enjoyed carving (even faces!),
Elise enjoyed scooping and Naomi
thought the process was pretty gross.

Since it's a big concept for a three-year-old to wrap her head around, Naomi and I practiced trick-or-treating throughout all levels of our house as we visited different animals' "homes." She also asked me to repeat over and over again the events that would happen on Halloween, so by the time the big day arrived, she was confident and prepared.

As the sun began to set on Halloween night, we scurried around finishing supper while rounding up scattered parts of costumes, finding candles for our pumpkins and generously deciding that Naomi should have the purple plastic pumpkin. (Elise had mistakenly believed that it was hers to give, but in light of her sweet generosity I didn't need to remind her of this point.) They waited patiently through pictures and then they were off! Naomi needed no convincing to trail after her big sisters, although longer legs would've helped.

As another part of our preparation, we'd all found jokes, in keeping with the area tradition of requiring a trick in order to hand out a treat. Elise thought of hers weeks in advance and made elaborate preparations. She begged a singleton white sock off of me (its partner is still out there somewhere, right?!?) and cut holes for each of her Tommy kitten's paws. Voila! A ghost costume! And here's the script to go along with it:
Elise, speaking in a tiny kitten voice and holding up her gray kitten: "What does a kitten say on Halloween?"
Joke recipient: "I don't know, what?"
Elise, putting the gray kitten inside her Halloween pumpkin and pulling out Tommy dressed in a ghost costume: "Meeuuuuue!" [Rhymes with "Boo!"]
And people laugh because she's just so cute and enthusiastic.
And yes, Tommy kitten is named after and inspired by Uncle Tom and both are the most mischievous members of their families.

Kalina's joke took more consideration. "Maaaybe..." But after narrowing it down to four, she was forced to decide quickly on the big night, lest people decide she hadn't earned her candy, and settled on "How do you fix a pumpkin? With a pumpkin patch!" She delivered it well and earned a lot of compliments as nobody seemed to have heard it before (We've all heard the one about witches at the beach--sandwiches!!--dozens of times before).

Naomi, of course, wanted a joke too. While I quickly scanned for one she'd have a chance at remembering, she came up with her own:
Naomi: "What does a puppy say?"
Joke recipient: "What?"
Naomi: "Woof!"
And everyone would laugh, because who wouldn't laugh at a little three-year-old in an adorable puppy costume telling a joke like that? Occasionally she goofed up a bit and asked, "What does a woof-woof say?" and people were a little confused, but we would all still have a good chuckle.

The weather was perfect and we made it most of the way around the block before our short-napping toddler began to get weary, and even Kalina was ready to call it a night. (Not sure how long Elise could've kept going...). After we dropped Naomi off at home, our last stop was the house we had boo-bagged and Elise couldn't help asking the parents, while the kids were out of hearing, whether they had boo-bagged us. The parents denied any involvement, but of course returned the question. As my kids don't lie, all they could do was smile. Caught!

Back at home, Naomi was already on her second treat under Matt's watchful eye, and he kindly allowed a Tootsie Roll before she headed up to bed. It took a good ten minutes to brush the sticky, squishy chunks from all the crevices of her teeth, but at least she was happy....

The girls were very satisfied with their hauls (Elise: "My pumpkin is almost too heavy to hold!"), and have spent many happy minutes sorting, organizing, dividing and planning out the order in which they will consume the treats (especially Elise). But Elise is never happier than when she shares her treats, and so her first act was to set aside duplicate treats for friends, soldiers and even for the neighbor girl's dad who was threatening to steal her candy.

And so it was another happy Halloween that was more treat than trick. Meeeuuuuw!