Happy Halloween!

Carving pumpkins last week

The crew, right before heading out to trick-or-treat

The back side

 Remember how Brian and I had this plan for all of us to be Phineas and Ferb characters?  Alyssa was totally on board, but the boys were not, and even though we tried, we couldn't convince them to be Ferb and Phineas.

Alyssa started out as an Egyptian girl, then an Egyptian princess, but when she went to a Halloween birthday party, everyone called her "Cleopatra."  She came home, looking a little disappointed, told me what happened, and said, "I think I want to change what I want to be for Halloween."

"Oh, no you don't,"  I thought.  "I worked hard on that costume.  I'm not making another one."

"I'm going to change my costume to Cleopatra!" she said.  Yea!  I was happy about that one.  It turns out that there was only one other girl at the birthday party, which is why she came home disappointing.

Ethan wanted to be Super Dog, and the best part about it is that he had an absolute idea in his head of what Super Dog looks like, and he told me what he wanted.  I thought it would be fun to put a bone and an "S.D." on the back of his cape, but no - Super Dog doesn't have that on his cape.  Ethan said Super Dog's cape had stripes - green stripes.  I thought it would be fun to make him a collar with an I.D. tag, but Super Dog doesn't have a collar, because, "he doesn't have an owner."  Duh!  Before I made his costume, I asked Ethan where he learned about Super Dog, and I wasn't getting any straight answers.  I had already Googled it, but the Super Dog I was finding wasn't matching up to what Ethan was describing.

"Is he from a movie or cartoon?" I asked.

"No," Ethan said.  "He's real."

"Where did you see him?"

"On a cloud," he said.  Okay.  So I followed his instructions, and he ended up pretty happy with the end product.

Marcus kept going back and forth and all around with what he wanted to be.  Batman.  A cheetah.  Batman.  Baby dog.  I don't know what else.  At first when I showed him the rocket man idea, he liked it, but then he kept changing his mind, so  I asked if I could surprise him, and he was excited about that.  Rocket man it was, then.  He didn't like his costume at first, but once the other two kids started putting theirs on, he put on his jetpack, and ran around the room making rocket noises.

Here's a closeup of his shirt.  How could he not like this shirt?  The moon has crators! I, myself, am quite proud of this shirt.

Our tribute to Phineas and Ferb

 I was talking to my mom on the phone a couple weeks ago, trying to figure out what I could be to go along with Brian's Dr.  Doofenshmirtz and Becca's Perry the Platypus.  I originally wanted to be Vanessa,  Brian wanted me to be Lindonna.  I was stuck.  Then  I thought of my brother Philip.  When Philip was in high school he made a huge R2D2 costume that he actually got inside, sat on a tricycle, and rode around the church parking lot for trunk-or-treat.  A few weeks ago he was making a Tardis (?) costume out of an old refrigerator box to go along with Erin's Dr. Who costume.  I thought of this, gave a loud laugh, and said, "If I was Phil, I would make myself an Inator!"  But then I thought, "Why not?"  I didn't do my costume nearly as cool as Philip would have - it's just a cheap sweatshirt that says, "-inator" on it, but at least I was something.  And the sweatpants I got with it are really comfy.

Another shot of Becca the Platypus, because she's so stinkin' cute!

Our jack-o-lanterns.  It's hard to see the kids standing by their pumpkins, but it goes (left to right) Ethan, Alyssa, Marcus. Ethan and Alyssa carved theirs all by themselves. Ethan even wouldn't let us look at his until it was all finished.  I love how it turned out!  Marcus designed his, and I carved it.

Enjoying our spoils after trick-or-treating while watching Disney's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow"