Halloween Craziness

We decided to do some decorating for Halloween this year. The kids worked on a haunted gingerbread style house. The frosting was really runny, which made the house look even spookier. Of course, when our kids made silly faces, they could have passed for zombies and raise the spookiness another notch as well.

Lydia tried on this beautiful dress - she really liked how sparkly it is.

At school, they did a crazy hair day to give the kids a chance to be silly. Tanja found this idea on the Internet and Karina was excited to try it out. That's an empty water bottle on her head with her hair "pouring" out into a cup that is sitting on her ear. And Karina is putting her feet on our patio door because she wanted to add to the 'craziness' factor.

The other two kids were pretty silly too that morning at breakfast.

Karina's best friend Orly did her hair the same way - I find it unsurprising that there is a strange fashion trend that I knew nothing about.

Tanja took the kids to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in DC one day when they had the day off of school.

They had a paper airplane exhibit contest that day. The kids had to fold a paper airplane following instructions from the presenters and then try and throw their paper airplanes through a hoop. Karina and Lydia both made it through the hoop and were two of the few kids who advanced to the next round.

Tanja had asked Derek one day what he wanted to be for Halloween. He apparently replied he wanted to be a giraffe. We weren't planning on doing anything with that request until we went to a neighbor's garage sale during one of our walks. As luck would have it, she had a giraffe costume for sale and it was the right size to fit Derek. He insisted on wearing the costume the rest of the walk. Here he is wearing it holding a couple of his stuffed giraffes.

Halloween around here is a multi-stage affair. First, we had the trunk or treat activity at church. Orly joined us as Hermione from Harry Potter. Karina dressed as Evie from Disney's Descendents (complete with blue hair that takes a long time to wash out), and Lydia wore the vintage witch costume that Tanja wore when she was a child. We couldn't find the matching witch hat, so we borrowed one from a friend.

I think Lydia's socks really complete the outfit.

For comparison, here is Lydia wearing the same witch costume in 2016.

Karina and Orly.

A few days later, we had a neighborhood parade.

Derek was a fast moving giraffe trying to run with the big kids.

Several of the neighborhood kids at the end of the parade.

Our kids are cute.

I didn't know that giraffes could ride tricycles.

Or scooters...

The day of Halloween, Karina and Lydia had parties at school complete with a school parade of costumes.   Here are the kids at our bus stop all dressed up:

Karina and Lydia in the school Halloween parade:

I got to go to Lydia's class party, and Tanja took Derek to Karina's (where supposedly, he was very popular with the second grade girls in his giraffe costume). Lydia was very excited to have me in her classroom during the party. Then, on Halloween night, Karina went trick or treating with Orly (her first time not being with the rest of us - guess kids have to grow up sometime), while Tanja and I took Derek and Lydia around the neighborhood as long as they lasted. We also left a bucket of candy out on our porch step for the first time asking that kids only take 2 and when we came back, it was empty. Obviously, we have no idea how many kids came down our little cul-de-sac, since all it takes is a greedy kid dumping the entire bucket into their sack, but we managed to get rid of some extra candy this year.

For a girl scout patch, Lydia had to send in a picture of herself standing on her head since the founder of Girl Scouts liked standing on her head. I don't remember ever getting a head-standing merit badge in Boy Scouts...

Of course, when Derek saw her, he decided he needed to try standing on his head too. He managed to do a somersault.