Halloween

It's been a busy time with holidays this year since everybody has been getting sick on and off. I'm just now getting around to posting on the blog again, after lapsing pretty much all of November...

So let's start with where I left off--Halloween.

We intended Audrey to be a giant banana for Halloween, and Ethan a little monkey. Ethan wore his monkey costume without protest but Audrey didn't care for the banana. After Audrey rejected the banana costume, we tried three princess dresses that Grandma Karen gave us: no, no, and no. Finally, Nunner had an idea for a ballerina outfit. Audrey deigned to wear the leotard but refused the tutu. We waited until Halloween festivities were underway, and slipped the tutu on once she was distracted by all the other kids' costumes.

Here's Audrey in her ballerina outfit (costume #5) and Ethan in his monkey outfit.







Ethan's costume had a padded belly to make him look chubby. He's not that chubby in real life :)











Amber gave me the hat I'm wearing when Ethan was born. It says お父さん (otōsan)--"father" in Japanese.







Our first stop was Lakeline Mall. The mall hands out candy over Halloween and we thought that would be a nice alternative to going door-to-door: Audrey can run around a little more freely, and hopefully the experience would be less scary for her.

The mall was packed, and it seemed like all the good candy had been given out before we got there.







The stores that participated (and still had anything left to give) had somebody standing in front of them, passing out candy.



I bought her this trick-or-treat basket when she was first born. We finally used it :)



We stopped and had dinner in the food court. Audrey is currently going through a picky phase with what she eats, but she seems to always want a bite or two of whatever Daddy is eating. She says "bite, bite" or sometimes simply "want!".



Ethan slept through most of the mall trip. But people were constantly commenting on our cute little monkey.















Here's Audrey in the car, counting her loot. This is about the entire haul from the mall--a few lollipops. The stores had given out most of the candy before we got there, so they resorted to stickers and coupons, etc. We have a coupon to Visible Changes if anybody wants it.

After the mall, we went around our neighborhood a bit (sorry, no pictures). Audrey liked this much better and got much better candy. After going around the block or so, Audrey and Mommy sat on our front porch and gave out candy to kids coming by. Audrey liked this very much and did a pretty good job too.