Halloween 2011

Happy Halloween!

This year, Bran was a ninja werewolf (but really he ditched the werewolf head pretty much right away all the time, so was mostly a ninja. And his teeth look gross because Z painted them with zombie teeth paint.), Maeve was a little witch, and Nuala was Izzy, from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. If you don't know who they are, and you WANT to, click here to see a picture of her, with her pirate buddies. Nuala has, shockingly, never been a princess for Halloween. Well, two years ago, she was a fairy warrior princess, but that's not a PRINCESS princess, you know? Just kinda strange, seeing how much she likes princesses and looking soooo beautiful. But, I'm not complaining! And, honestly, I don't care what she wants to be, whether it's stereotypical or not, as long as she's having fun and is happy. She can be pink and girly and into fluff and princesses, or she can go the tomboy-ish route. And, like most little girls, she's a bit of both. Aaaand, I was about to keep going about princesses and little girls and yada, yada, yada, but then I remembered this is a Halloween post, so I'll try to stay on-topic here...

Pumpkin carving! They all always like to taste the pumpkins, and, like last year, Maeve wanted to keep eating them. Yum.

Every jack-o-lantern wants a finger poked in its nose.

Bran's on the left, Nuala's on the right. Hers was supposed to be a bit princess-y (ha, back to princesses!), so that's hair on the sides... I'm sure you could tell that was a princess.

They also had fun decorating some paper jack-o-lanterns.

Maeve working quite diligently on hers...

We made these very neat haunted houses, from this blog. I planned on making more for them to decorate, but I couldn't find my exacto knife, and my patience was wearing quite, quite thin trying to cut out all the tiny windows. But they turned out pretty cool! Nuala and Bran had fun drawing little witches and pumpkins and zombies and stuff peeking out.

We had a little Halloween playdate/party. We had lots of yummy treats, and Nuala and Bran were good helpers. Of course. They especially helped make these little spiders. PB/chocolate mixture on Ritz crackers with pretzel stick legs and M&M eyes. I was doling out the M&Ms, and Bran... a boy after my own heart... Bran was making HIS spiders be one-eyed ones, and eating the other eye that was designated for the little arachnid. Can't blame him! My mom sent us a box-full of Halloween candy and stuff, so that was really, really nice... Thanks again, Mom! :)

This picture is totally out of order, but I refuse to invest the amount of time it takes to move it to the right spot, change the HTML code to make it get bigger, etc., etc... So you get it here. This is from the embassy party, right after trick-or-treating at the offices, which were awesomely decorated, by the way. These are our good friends, Tyler, who's 5, and his little sister and brother, Emily and Jakob, who are twins, just 2-months younger than Maeve. They were Minnie and Mickey (obviously) and were super cute! We love hanging out with them! Amy, their mom, is just great! Very fun to be around... and their dad's neat-o, too, if we get right down to it ;) (Bonnie, if you're reading this, you should know that they totally make me think of you, since they've got almost your exact set-up kid-wise.)

Back to our little shindig. We had 20 kids there, including our 3. Luckily the weather was nice, so the chaos could be released outside, too. Here they're playing a game called Witches Brew, which was pretty fun. N and B and I drew a bunch of little spiders, bats, eyeballs, lizard tails, flies, etc... You know, stuff you'd obviously put in a witches brew. Then you sprinkle them all over and the kids have to use a straw to suck them up and then deposit them in a bowl. Suck them up just so they're stuck flat on the end of the straw, not suck them UP up. I thought it was really fun, and I liked drawing all the little thingies. It received mixed reviews from the kids... N&B really liked it.

Maeve did not nap at all before the party (she's so cooperative. Ha.), so she conked out at about 5pm and we put her on the couch. She slept till everyone left, except Amy and her kids. Emily and Jakob helped poke and prod and shoot her awake, so that she'd actually sleep later that night. Z got home from a week in Portland (his cousin Ben's wedding) and Prague (for work) the following day (his 34th birthday), and the Halloween festivities just continued.

Here he is, with Maeve, before going to the school's halloween party (we kinda crashed, were kinda invited...) and then the church's party.

Here are Bran and Nuala playing musical chairs at the church party. They both lost, but this time did NOT dissolve into wailing puddles of tears, so that's progress.

Galia and Doncho, from our branch, trying to hold an oozing Maeve.

Bobbing for apples. I asked another boy if he was going to do it, and he looked at me very disgustedly and said, "No way! Everybody's spit is in there!" Good point, dude, good point.

Our children do not yet mind everybody's spit.

Maeve and Ivy, her little church buddy. She was a bee. :)

Bran and Nuala and their good little friend, Mia, who also is Ivy's big sis. She was Hermione.

Us (minus Z) with Ambassador Warlick at the embassy party. He used to go paragliding with us, but it's been a while. I was super green, by the way, because Nuala did my makeup, for the most part. She's into bold use of color.

Nuala and her little friend, Sloane, after getting their faces painted. Sloane was Pippi Longstocking.

We didn't play our Pin/Stick the Cats on the Fence game during our party, so Bran and Nuala played it by themselves later. This picture just totally captures the essence of the Nuala-Bran relationship. Their expressions say it all. They do get along really well a lot of the time, but the rest of the time you can count on Bran getting this mischievous look and doing whatever he can in order to trigger this sorta response from his sis. Soooooo entertaining! We ALL love it! Ha.

Me: Nuala, are you peeking? Nuala: Nooooo.... Hmmm. I'm pret-ty sure I was onto something. (And she DID want the cat to be flying, so that's not an indication of her innocence.)

Double broomstick ride! Comfy for all. Hope y'all had a happy Halloween, too! Bring on November! (Um, yeah...I know it's already here.)