Lions, Tigers, and Saints?

This was the first year that our end of October activities required two sets of costumes...one for the All Saints Festival at Marie's school and one for our traditional Halloween trick-or-treating with Rosie, Lilly, and their family.  I wasn't too worried about dressing up for Halloween, but was a little daunted by the need to first figure out which Saint Marie and Joey wanted to be and then put together a costume.

Marie had originally asked to dress up as Padre Pio for the All Saints Fest, but settled on St. Therese of Lisieux (thankfully!).  Joey on the other hand didn't really have much to say about what saint he wanted to be.  He just knew he'd need to dress up if he wanted to go to and participate in the festival at Marie's school.  So, it was decided that I would make him a basic Franciscan robe and we'd go from there.  It seemed like a natural extension to grab a couple of stuffed animals and go as St. Francis.

The day of the festival was a busy one.  I dropped Marie off at school and stayed for daily Mass.  Afterward, there was a Saints parade in the gym.  It was neat to see all the different costumes!  Afterward, I went home and picked up Joey before going back to school to help with lunch duty.  Joey and I stuck around for the festival later that afternoon.  There were 10-12 stations set up in the gym with games for all the kids, bowling, fishing, golf, basketball, pin the wings on the angels, etc.  By the time the hour was over, both Marie and Joey had a full bag of treats!  It was nice to get to know some of the other parents and match more faces with names of Marie's classmates.

The actual day of Halloween, we had arranged to meet up with our friends the Roberts' family.  We have gone trick-or-treating with them the last couple of years in Northville.  We reused a couple of costumes from years past, Joey was a cowboy and Stevie was a tiger, which was especially cute since Leo who is about the same age as Stevie was a lion.  Marie got a "new"costume this time around...she was a firefighter (notice the reflective tape in the pictures!). 

Northville is known for their trick-or-treating and it is always a busy place.  It took a lot of vigilance on the part of the parents to keep track of our six kids ages 5 and under. Thankfully, the kids were happy to just hit a few houses and then head over to Aubrey's for pizza.  It was a fun, memorable, and yes tiring evening!

Halloween Fun

The kids were really looking forward to Halloween this year. Last year, Marie started talking about going trick-or-treating with Rosie and Lilly again within a couple of months. Well, the time finally came!

The first activity was to carve their jack-o-lantern out of one of the pumpkins they had chosen during our previous outing with Rosie and Lilly. (Note: The other pumpkin met its demise while being rolled and thrown down the hill behind our house, an activity that was neither dreamed up nor accomplished by the kids alone. I'll refrain from naming the instigators/accomplices.)

Marie and Joey thoroughly enjoyed scooping out the seeds, drawing Jack's face(s), posing with the finished product, and ultimately lighting it (sorry, no pictures of that). The whole family was there for the lighting and Joey was very excited about showing Jon their work. He used one of his more recent favorite phrases, "Look! Look!"

Since visiting Pittsburgh for JJ's birthday, the kids have been interested in Thomas the Train and Lightning McQueen even more than usual. I must have been feeling overwhelmed with my list of things to do when I saw these costumes because I quickly banished any thought of finding creative (i.e. less expensive) options and just got them. I have to admit, the kids loved them.

Our first stop on Halloween night was to Uncle Mark and Aunt Sarah's house. Joey was quite impressed with the whole concept of getting candy and then spent the rest of the time kicking around a stuffed (Illini) basketball. After our short visit, we were off to do more trick-or-treating with our goddaughters Rosie and Lilly.

We went trick-or-treating in Northville, and area very close to where Rosie and Lilly live. It was the same area were we went last year. The streets were crawling with people. Marie was definitely shy at first, but then warmed up to the whole process. She and Rosie (both 4 years old) definitely have different personalities; Marie is more hesitant and cautious while Rosie is a real go-getter. Lilly just turned three and also got into the fun. Joey on the other hand was completely happy being carried around by Jon as he watched everything around him. He especially liked seeing all the people out with their dogs. Another highlight was the girls happening upon a large pile of leaves in front of one house. Before we could even say a word, they had jumped right in. We barely had enough time to snap a picture!

After about 40 minutes, we had our fill of trick-or-treating. True to tradition, we all headed to Aubrey's for some dinner. The kids did very well even though they were pretty tired. Between the cool air and the surrounding commotion, they were beat. By the time we were leaving, Rosie had even fallen asleep.

Needless to say, we parents had our hands full keeping track of the kids in the crowd and we wondered how in the world we would do this next year when we would be outnumbered by two (their family is also expecting a son just a few weeks before us). I guess we'll worry about that when the time comes. :)

No Tricks...All Treat

As Halloween approached this year, Marie was periodically asked what she was going to dress up as. Her response was always immediate...a cow. Jon and I were both confused as to where in the world she came up with the idea. Needless to say, we didn't have a cow costume hiding in a closet somewhere. At first we thought she'd just forget about it or choose something else the next time asked. No such luck.

The closest (and easiest) thing we could come up with was a cowboy outfit. We made the transition last week by getting a book from the library, "I Want to be a Cowboy" and also by watching Toy Story 2. Thankfully it worked. By Friday, Marie was just as excited about being Jessie (a cowgirl) as she had been about being a cow. Whew.

By the way, she also told people more than once that Joey was going to dress up as a lion. I happened upon a tiger suit at a Mom-2-Mom sale, so that wasn't too much of a stretch.


On Saturday, we loaded up the kids and went to Northville. Our good friends the Roberts' and their girls (Rosie - 3; Lilly - 2) live near there and the city was having activities in the afternoon for younger kids prior to their annual Halloween extravaganza. Marie was tentative at first, but then realized that all she had to do was look cute and people would put candy into her bag! Later on, she and I were both a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of people out trick-or-treating. Northville really goes all out!


We didn't stay too long...the girls' feet got tired after visiting just a small portion of the Halloween stops. We decided to go out for a yummy dinner before heading home with one tired cowgirl and a snoozing tiger. Unfortunately, we weren't home to hand out candy ourselves and now we have LOTS around the house. Jon's going to end up with treats in his lunch for a long while...