Halloween 2007

Halloween is here!

So on Sunday we carved pumpkins. The girls eagerly clamored to help (we were not about to hand them carving knives, of course -- we would have had carved pumpkins, tables, chairs, binkies, cats, hands, you name it...). So they got the job of scooping the seeds out of the pumpkins. Abra reached in an exclaimed in delight "that's nasty!", and kept scooping out handfuls of pumpkin guts. Thalia, on the other hand, reached in, made a face, pulled out some orange glop, and announced "I'm done, Daddy. I don't want to do this any more."


So then Mom and Dad carved, and the girls watched closely. Thalia kept yelling out "DON'T CUT YOUR HAND, DAD!!" every three minutes -- the confidence that kid has in me is striking. Then we took the pumpkins out on the porch and the girls posed.

We left the pumpkins out on the porch, and Abra walked outside about an hour later and annouced "Something bad happened to the pumpkins." Turns out the squirrels got to them, to mine anyway, and ate some of the teeth and one of the eyes. So my scary pumpkin turned into an old blind woman pumpkin. Since that was about the same time that the Redskins managed to cut the Patriots' lead to 52-7, I was in a cranky mood anyway, so a mutilated pumpkin hardly bothered me. But we brought the pumpkins back inside to prevent further damage....

So tonight the girls got dressed up. Thalia was a giraffe (with black knee-high boots) and Abra was a purple unicorn. For those of you keeping score at home, yes, they wore these same costumes last year. Recycling is good! How many years can we get away with this?? Anyway, then their friend Lily came over, dressed as Glinda the Good Witch.




So off we go (in daylight, mind you, at 6:30pm. Trick or treating in daylight? Whose dumb idea was it to extend daylight savings time through Halloween?) First stop: next door to Jon and Molly's (who took their picture), then off to Ann's (who took their picture), etc, etc. Up and down the street, plastic pumpkin filling more and more. When they started complaining that their pumpkins were too heavy, it was time to head back home. Since it was finally dark, we could light the pumpkins.


Then I asked the girls to pose for a picture before eating candy, and this is their best OK-Dad-hurry-up-and-take-the-picture-so-we-can-eat-our-candy halloween smile:


And then we sat down to pass out candy to the trick or treaters who were still out and about.

(I'm not quite sure why Thalia looks like she's fielding a punt in that picture....)

Abra was very excited to hand out candy, and kept shouting "customers, we have customers!" She wanted to take the candy out to people on the street, and I had to explain to her that she was not to be a carhop. Which then of course meant I had to explain to her what a carhop was. So instead she went out in the yard, skipping around and yelling "CANDY! WE HAVE CANDY AVAILABLE!"

While Abra was dancing in the yard, the giraffe began to investigate the candy bowl


which brought the unicorn back to make sure there was no filching of candy going on. or at least to make sure she got in on the filching.


And then I took a picture of the ever-elusive Maoming black-booted dwarf giraffe.

(That picture makes me think of Wile E Coyote after an anvil has fallen on his head and he's all smashed down and walking around accordian-like...)

Thalia proved very good at dekeing out the kids who came up for candy, by holding out a fistful of about 5 pieces of candy to them, and then dropping only one in their bag...

OK, and finally, one last picture of the girls handing out candy.

So then we put the girls to bed and I proceeded to go through their pumpkins and pick out all the smarties for myself. Ahhh, smarties.

That's the report, Happy Halloween, all!


(postscript @ 10:45pm. Brenna and Wacko just got nailed by a skunk on their evening walk. sigh.... I guess we had to have a trick to go along with all our treats.)