This was the week where I tried to cram in all the Halloween I could before October 31st, because I had the sneaking suspicion that a storm named Sandy might just cancel trick-or-treating for us this year (by the way, my suspicion turned out to be spot on).
On Friday I took Lucy to the town Halloween parade to trick-or-treat (see previous Halloween parades here: 2007, 2008, 2009). She was stubborn and preferred sitting in the stroller to collecting candy at the local shops. Sound anything like a recent pumpkin patch outing? The parade always ends at a park where the magician "Amazing Andy" performs. I think I have his whole routine memorized at this point, but it still manages to be pretty funny. It took a little while for Lucy to warm up, but eventually she sat down and seemed entertained by the show.
Having her best buddy (and cousin) Will there helped.
On Saturday, everyone put on their costumes for a trunk-or-treat in the church parking lot, and I took that opportunity to take pictures. Year after year, pictures of the girls in their costumes end up being some of my very favorites:
I had very little input on what everyone chose to dress up as for Halloween this year. Ella knew from the start that she wanted to be a Yankee player:
Claire was adamant about being Tinker Bell, even though I don't think she has ever seen Peter Pan and has only watched this Tinker Bell movie once or twice:
I couldn't find an actual Tinker Bell costume that I liked, but Claire approved of this Tinker Bell-inspired fairy outfit that I put together... except for the shoes. I thought she could just wear her silver ballet flats but was informed that no, Tinker Bell wears "green shoes with white balls on top." Sure enough, when I Googled Tinker Bell, there she was wearing green shoes with white pom poms. So I ended up having to buy the official Disney light-up Tinker Bell shoes, which Claire wore nonstop around the house for weeks even though I accidentally bought them a size too small.
I was originally planning to have Lucy wear the bee costume Ella wore when she was two years old, but when I tried it on Lucy a few weeks before Halloween it was clear that she wanted nothing to do with it no matter how hard I tried talking it up. She loves dressing up like a "prin-sense" so I found this witch costume at Target and told her she was going to be a "princess witch." She loved it. The best part about this costume was when you asked her if she was a good witch or a bad witch. She always answered definitively: "a BAD witch!"
And now, an illustration of what you can accomplish when you waste an entire evening in Photoshop:
I don't normally do stuff like this in Photoshop, but this photo was practically begging for it. Here's a before and after to give you a better idea of the work I had to do:
Aside from all the Halloween activities, Matt also spent Saturday cleaning out the gutters in preparation for Sandy...
