Halloween Fun

Halloween anticipation has been building for several weeks in our house. The kids both settled on their costumes early on – there was never really any doubt the Harry Potter-obsessed Mikaela would go as Harry Potter, and she received most of the components of her costume as birthday presents earlier in the month. We were somewhat less certain what Jonathan would choose to do, but as soon as we mentioned Halloween, Jonathan was excited to get to wear his dinosaur costume again — and this year, he actually wore it, instead of being afraid of it!

We actually started our celebration on Friday, with an evening playdate with Mikaela’s best CDC-buddy Logan, and her brother Garrett. Rather than carve pumpkins (sharp knives around four young children just seemed a bad idea) we picked up tempra paint and let the kids paint their pumpkins. We also picked up an additive for the paint that was supposed to make it glow in the dark – unfortunately, the additive didn’t seem to work at all. After painting pumpkins, we ordered pizza (and I somehow accidentally ordered a BBQ pizza from Pizza Hut, instead of plain cheese. Oh well. Lots of leftovers for lunches after ordering a replacement pizza).

We watched movies while eating pizza – the boys watched Monsters, Inc. upstairs while the girls watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone downstairs. Plans for the return playdate were already underway before the movies were over.

We lucked out with terrific weather for Halloween. Warm enough that we didn’t need to wear coats to trick-or-treat, but Mikaela wasn’t too hot in her Hogwart’s robes and Jon wasn’t melting with his dinosaur hood up. Despite a runny nose and a cough, Jonathan had plenty of energy for trick-or-treating, though he and Miriam turned back to home a few blocks earlier than Mikaela and I did. The only real downside of the whole trick-or-treat experience was the smoke machine that one of our neighbors decided to use as part of their yard decorations. After walking through the smoke to knock on the door, and then back through it to reach the sidewalk again, Mikaela had a pretty nasty asthmatic cough herself. Luckily, we were almost home at that point.