calm crazy: Halloween 2010!

A little late in the day, but here are our pictures from Halloween night! A few notes on the costume choices:

This was the first year that we've really gone the "scary" route with Sam. He decided to be the Grim Reaper. However, he thought that the scythe was "too much" to carry so he left it in the van. The little kids did mostly okay seeing him in the costume. Mostly.

This year is the first in five years that Jake's been anything other than a Redskins player. He'd have worn it again, I'm sure--if he hadn't outgrown the costume. He is a big time Star Wars fan but he hated this costume. It wasn't put together well. I think I may be able to talk him into a homemade costume next year. Yay!

Zander chose a knight because he is IN LOVE with dragons. It was perfect for him and he was absolutely adorable.

Izzy was a cow. BECAUSE! Every. Stinking. Time. We pass a cow he screams, "MOOOOO! It's a MOOOOO!" (Unless he's saying it's a horse. But, you know.) So we thought it would be cute. And it was! But you know what? He said "moo" maybe one time the whole night. Eh. Whatcha gonna do, right?

Last year I took one picture of the group and it came out perfect. This year I took about 20 (in two different locations, no less!) and this is the best I got:

We went to a local festival-type thing at a State Park down the road earlier in the day. There was face painting and Zander agreed to sit for the lady to get a horse on his face. He picked out the horse and at the time I thought that was a strange choice for him. Horse? Really? But then we put his costume on and it suddenly just worked! The boy is clearly a genius.

Last shot, I promise! Here's Izzy doing his first real trick-or-treat. He did a couple houses last year but spent most of the time in his stroller. This year we didn't even bring the stroller. (Sob!) He was so cute. He would yell out, "Cheet!" at every stop, grab his candy, and then run away with a trailing "Dank you!" Everybody loved him; it was great.

So that was our first real American Halloween since 2002! It was a lot of fun. No worries about parking or super-crowded streets. (It's not as bad as it used to be, but Halloween at Ramstein and Vogelweh was not a lot of fun for parents before they put up all those new townhomes. Man oh man!)