The kids had a week to celebrate their school's 25th anniversary with different themes to dress up for each day for those that wanted to participate. One of the more popular themes was Wacky Tacky and Crazy Hair Day where kids could wear silly mismatching clothes and have strange hair. This year, the girls went in with hair dyed with colored hair spray - it washed out after a day or two of scrubbing. Karina wore mismatching shoes and socks to go with her tie-dyed school T-shirt. Considering that Karina typically wears only solid black clothing, it was 'wacky' for her.
Lydia just wanted to have silly hair.
Derek was eager to participate in the full effect and initially wanted his hair done up with small rubber bands in tiny Pebbles-style ponytails like we did with the girls when they were babies. However, he soon decided that it hurt too much to get his hair done like that. I don't think Tanja's explanation that his sisters had to do that every day gave him a newfound respect for his sisters and other girls. Then he decided he would have blue colored hairspray to make his hair crazy. Before it was applied, Tanja explained he would have to cover his eyes, to keep the spray away. He asked what would happen if the blue hairspray got into his eyes and the answer was that he would need his eyes rinsed with water. That was the end of his desire for blue hair. So instead, he decided to wear a unicorn headband paired with mismatched soccer socks and for some silly reason, colorful socks pinned to his shirt. The colorful socks safety-pinned to his shirt was 100% Derek's idea.
Here are our three wacky tacky kids.
Halloween festivities came and went. As part of the school's 25th anniversary celebration, they were planning on a Fall Festival on the last evening of the week (they no longer are allowed to do Halloween parties with a parade during school hours which is unfortunate since that was always fun for the kids and parents). Unfortunately, the Fall Festival was rained out - because of COVID restrictions, the activity was only going to be held outdoors. It was rescheduled for the following Friday (first Friday after Halloween) instead, and we went and had a great time (though took no pictures there).
Instead of the Fall Festival, we wound up going to the church, where instead of their originally scheduled trunk or treat, they moved it indoors and let people decorate different rooms in the church building for the kids to go around and get candy.
My work organized a trunk or treat activity for the day before Halloween (Saturday), and as luck would have it, it fit very nicely between all the soccer games we had for the day. The rainstorm that had rained out the Fall Festival had moved on by then, so we got the kids loaded up and went to the trunk or treat.
Here's our car decorated all spooky in the parking lot.
They had a police dog there for the kids to pet and learn about along with a fire truck and a police mobile command center and a DJ playing music to dance to and liven things up. Unfortunately, they planned the activity to last for two hours and if you were passing out candy, you had to stay there the entire time. Hopefully next year, they won't make it last as long, as the kids lost interest in being there after a while. Here the girls are next to Archie the explosive-sniffing police dog.
Lydia dressed up as Snoopy using a costume that Mormor made for Uncle Erik 30+ years ago (and is still in great shape). She was very excited to honor Snoopy this way now that the costume fits her and thought it was silly to get a dog nose and whiskers drawn on her face.
Karina went as the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz, complete with painted green face. There were a few girls wandering around the trunk or treat as Dorothy and I tried to get Karina to chase them, but she was too nice.
Derek of course went dressed as a pirate.
Also on the Saturday before Halloween, we had a neighborhood costume parade. Lydia and Derek didn't join in the group shot, but here are some of the kids in the neighborhood (it's great to live in a neighborhood with lots of kids).
Here are all three of the kids before heading out for trick or treating on Halloween night; we joined up with Lydia's friend Rebekah to go trick or treating, which was great for Lydia to do it with a friend.
And since Derek was insistent on needing his sword, something that caused a few near disasters as he couldn't find it for various portions of the Halloween festivities, here are some solo pictures of Derek the Pirate with his Fearsome Sword.
Halloween is a treasured holiday for our kids. Derek especially loved looking at all the houses with their decorations and was insistent that our house needed to be decorated too (then lamented when it wasn't as cool as the neighbors). I think they had a good one and have a year's supply of candy to show for it.
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