Halloween activities & Trick-or-Treating

First, the Thursday before Halloween, Gabe dressed up for Bell Preschool as a little Raider. He got so many oohs and ahhs that he became extremely shy.



The same day, Paloma dressed up for her Peapods time at the library, but I didn't see her that time.

On Friday, Gabriel had his Halloween party. I think. Or was it on Monday? I don't know. I didn't get to go. But he was Buzz Lightyear.

On Saturday, Carmen dressed up as Ariel (The Little Mermaid) for her costume piano recital (her first piano recital, by the way, attended by her grandparents and immediate family only since I couldn't get around to telling anyone else--her 1st grade teacher told me the following week that she wanted to go!). That night, David & I dressed up in our dorky 80s wear and Paloma wore a ladybug costume I had since Carmen was little just for fun (she had been wearing her Anne Geddes ladybug tshirt all day--the one I got her in Downtown Disney at the awesome Anne Geddes store).



On Sunday, we had our church fall festival. We heard there was a bounce house, so we asked the kids if they'd rather be Incredibles than Buzz & Ariel because those would be hard costumes for jumping. They chose to wear their Incredibles costumes from last year. David & I were going to be M&Ms like my car, but if the kids were going to be Incredibles, we figured we should be them again too. I was not about to wear those boots again! I was considering buying some tall black boots that I could walk in, but when it was almost time to go, I couldn't find my red tights and black shorts. Too bad, because last year we missed our church thing due to Carmen's rash & sickness, so we never went anywhere except our families' houses in our infamous family costumes. We still hear about our Christmas cards; it will be hard to live those down or follow them up this year!




On Tuesday, Carmen was supposed to dress as an Egyptian because they'd been studying that in school. Gigi got her a "I Dream of Jeannie" looking costume and that was close enough!

That evening, Carmen had her piano lesson at 6 (at our house) just as it got dark and the trick-or-treaters started coming by. I was trying to get everybody ready so we could leave immediately afterwards, but David got stuck at the airport, so it was challenging. Carmen dressed as Ariel again, Gabe dressed as Buzz, and Paloma dressed as Tinkerbell.

We call it trick-or-treating, but what we've always done, and still seem to get away with, is walking to the houses of our neighbors that we know, then driving to Debbie's house, then driving to Mom & Dad's house (where luckily this year we got to see Amy & Allison's families too) then by Jackie's house and finally Joe & Susan's house on our way home. (Last year we had to stop at Amy's then Allison's houses, too. But last year while we were at Mom's, the kids went trick-or-treating on their block--this year they just played with their cousins. "We have enough candy," Gabe explained.)

I only got one picture of all of the cousins together at Mom & Dad's house. But I got these adorable ones of the kids!