Halloween Festivities

PLAYGROUP HALLOWEEN PARTY:
October was such a busy month! It was fun to enjoy some Halloween festivities. The first was our Playgroup's Halloween Party. As you can see above, Ava was not going to pose for a picture and Elise didn't have much choice.
The party was fun. They did a craft, coloring page, got to play with special orange dough and decorated cookies. I think Ava decorated about five cookies and ate probably 2 1/2. I brought our new parachute (got it at Costco for $14.99!) for the kids to play with.

CHURCH TRUNK-OR-TREAT:
On Tuesday, we went to the annual Trunk-or-Treat at church. I think the crowd was a bit lighter than previous years when it was held on Halloween night, but all the same, the kids had a good time.

So, our official costumes this year....we decided, actually it was Chris' idea, to go as Goldilocks & the Three Bears! We were thinking of having Ava go as a princess like Cinderella for a while. We knew Elise would be going as a bear since we had the costume when Ava was a baby.

I made Ava's costume (with LOTS of help from my friend Rebecca -thank you). It turned out really cute. I think I may be sewing more dresses in the future. On a side note, I bought some after Halloween sale costumes for dress-up and the quality is so poor compared to a handmade costume. I may have started a tradition of making costumes. Tune in next year to see if that sticks. I also made the ears, bow tie and bows so that we all coordinated. The saddest thing was when at least 4 different people at first thought we were mice. ;)

We had to hurry and teach Ava the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I actually found a cute British cartoon of the simplified story here: http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories-goldilocks.htm We watched it several times and then checked out books from the library. Now she definitely knows who was sleeping in Baby Bear's bed.

Elise is so photogenic! She loves to smile for the camera.
Here's Ava with her little friend Payton the Giraffe. So cute!
Here are 4 of the 5 cousins: William the Ninja, Ava as Goldilocks, Elise the Bear, and Kate the Ladybug. Ava's other cousin, Ryan, went as Steve from Blue's Clues. We met up with him on Halloween night.

HALLOWEEN EVENING:
Since the Trunk-or-Treat was the night before Halloween, this left us time on Halloween to try something new...Trick-or-Treating Downtown. We had never been so didn't know what to expect. It got really busy towards the end and I don't know how many suckers and tootsie rolls she got - tons. It makes sense that they'd be giving out cheapy candy because of all of the trick-or-treaters. Sadly, most of this candy will end up going to charity (like Chris' workplace) or into the circular file.

Here's our little family. Ava really got the hang of trick-or-treating this year. She learned quickly to say, "Trick or Treat", and also usually remembered to say "Thank You!"
I like this picture, taken by my sis, Heidi, of Ava and Elise. We like to "beep" noses at our house. Ava must have thought Elise needed her nose "beeped".

After trick-or-treating downtown, we met up with family at my parents' house. Then, Ava and her cousin Ryan, went trick-or-treating for real, up and down my parents' street. They were so funny! First of all, Ava was trotting along in William's shoes (at least 2 sizes too big) because her other shoes hurt her feet. That didn't stop her. She and Ryan loved knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell. The only thing was that Ava would knock, knock, knock, knock, until someone answered the door...the same thing with holding the doorbell button down. She also wanted to grab the candy out of the bowl. After several houses, Halloween etiquette learned.

Overall, a fun week of Halloween.