Halloween Fun

We've had a busy couple of days here with Halloween festivities.  On Saturday at church there was a Fall Festival party.  Karina wore a costume that Tanja had when she was a little girl.  She makes a cute witch, and I think the costume is in good shape for being over 20 years old.

Lydia is wearing her chick costume (the same costume Karina wore her first Halloween).  I, of course, am a chick magnet (haha, get it? ;-). 

The church party was pretty fun; they had a costume parade, a chili cookoff/dinner, several activity rooms, and then a trunk-or-treat activity where all the kids went around the parking lot where people would give them candy from the backs of their cars.  Here are some of the fun stories from the evening.

Tanja threw some chili together during a busy day while I was getting frustrated trying to cut tile for our kitchen backsplash.  As it so happened, she managed to win "Best in Show" at the chili cookoff!  Part of it may be due to the fact that her chili wound up being the first one that people would come to on the table.  Nevertheless, she said that she needs to try and remember the recipe that she made up on the fly so we can try out a full pot of her now award-winning chili!

The activity rooms were kind of fun.  They had face painting (which we didn't do), a fishing pond (dangling a magnet from a toy fishing pole to "catch" paper fish in a kiddie pool for a prize), a bean bag toss through a jack-o-lantern painted on a sheet, a photo booth, and a cupcake walk.  The cupcake walk involved several numbered squares of paper in a circle on the ground.  Music would play, and the kids would walk around in the circle on the papers.  When the music stopped, they would draw a number out of a hat, and whichever kid was standing on that square would win a cupcake.  Well, Karina snuck into this activity, but the organizers didn't really notice.  She didn't really understand the concept, but when the music stopped, there was an open square, and she was told to go and stand on it, so she did.  They drew the paper, and it happened to be her number!  She won the cupcake and was quite excited for it.  Eating it was a messy affair, and she only took a couple bites before deciding she didn't really like it.

The obvious highlight for Karina was the trunk or treating.  We have been working with her to teach her to say "trick or treat" to get candy (it comes out as "tick o teat"), and she did very well saying it to everyone with a bowl of candy.  One of her idiosyncrasies was that she didn't like people putting candy in her pumpkin - she much rather would take candy from people's hand or their bowl, and place it in her pumpkin herself.  Also, at one car, she saw one of the older kids going to get candy, saw that the kid had a bowl like many of the people who were giving out candy, and our little thief of a daughter went up to her, reached her hand into the bowl, and stole candy from the older girl!  The girl thought it was hilarious and told her to keep the candy, but we might have to work on this... ;-)

Karina's favorite candy from the trunk or treat is the lollipops.  She has only gotten one so far, but has asked about them several times.  Besides her ever-favorite of M&Ms, which we are saving for Karina, Tanja and I went through the candy in her pumpkin and reserved what we want for ourselves and picked out loser candy that will go back in the bowl to be handed out on Halloween. At the trunk-or-treat, Tanja stood by the car handing out candy and she counted 83 kids that she gave treats to.  We suspect some of the older kids were sneaky, coming around more than once.  Nonetheless, that was a lot of candy to give out!  We're not sure if we'll get quite that many kids by our house on Halloween, but we are expecting a crowd based on what our neighbors say.
 
Lydia was absolutely adorable, and many people commented about it.  She is very interested in all the kids wandering around with strange outfits.  She gets excited seeing all the kids and starts vocalizing and cooing.  Here I am with the girls at the church party (Tanja hasn't dressed up yet and isn't sure what she will wear for Halloween).

This morning the neighborhood had a Halloween party.  We had a costume parade with all the kids dressed up in their costumes that started right in front of our house.  Lydia was as excited as last night looking at all the kids in costume and was the happiest little chick.

Here's our beautiful little girl!

Karina took advantage of the delay in starting the parade by playing in a neighbor's pile of leaves.  Her smile lit up her face and she had a blast.

She loved playing with the other kids.  Benjamin is the neighbor boy dressed as a monkey; Karina really likes playing with him...

...as you can see.  She's very giving with her hugs, although perhaps she comes across a little too strong! ;-)

Here's a neighborhood group shot.  Maybe I should have crouched down, but I wanted to make sure that Lydia was fully visible in the picture.  Karina kept moving around and changing spots in these group pictures based on what kid she thought looked interesting to be near.

After the parade, everyone was invited to one of the neighbor's homes for treats.  Karina and many of the other kids went straight for the playground.  Karina went down this slide all by herself, although it was pretty high and went very fast (I was actually scared for her).

I'm looking forward to the actual Halloween.  The girls really seem to love it, and I'm in favor of making them happy.