Our Halloween

People usually crack up when I tell them, "My kids start thinking of next year's costumes for Halloween the night of the present Halloween." Seriously. 364 days-o-plannin'.

The downer part of this year's trick or treating was the cold and rain. But the great part (besides the kids being so doggone excited) was the spontaneous visit by some great fellow homeschooling friends. The only reason I mention the homeschooling part is because we were some of the last remaining beggers around (again, in the miserable cold and rain) - we were all joking how our children are Hearty Homeschoolers. "We're deprived of most everything. This is our one thing. We're not stopping 'til we've hit every house!"

So here are the results of much creativity on the girls' part mostly:

Baby New Year (Charlie - 2.5yo)

The Pirate-y Boy - "ARG" (Joseph 4.5yo)

The Mad-Hatter (Dani 13yo)

And of course, Dread Pirate Roberts (John Paul 6yo)

Dani put this whole costume together herself. She bought the shirt for John Paul. Paul, Kayla and I were the only ones who knew of the secret costume. The other sibs loved it when they saw him in costume.

The Pink Panther (Therese 9yo)

Annie Oakley (Sophia 8yo - in 11 days ::sigh::)

Therese had an iPod shuffle with little speakers plugged in [$7 @ Best Buy] which was playing the theme to The Pink Panther. Paul attached the speaker to a belt with cable wraps and then it was hidden under her sweatshirt. She had the walk down to a T. It was so awesome. I really wanted to take some video of her, but it was rainy out. And cold. Yuck.

Dani bought her coat, shirt, vest, teacup and hat at Goodwill (actually, the hat she got at a party store). Her pocketwatch was an old alarm clock we had and we made a chain out of paper clips.

And now, they begin planning who they'll be in 364 days....