Well, the kids got plenty of opportunities to dress up and troll for candy this year. The most important part was obviously the candy. But the second most important part was choosing costumes. We let Aaron decide what he wanted to be and it shouldn't come as any great surprise that he chose a cat. That is, after all, the animal he has been exposed to the most in life so far. Since Jill was too young to have an opinion, she was forced into another sibling-coordinated costume:
Playing "cat and mouse" with Daddy
The Halloween activities started 3 weeks ahead of time with the annual festival at our favorite neighborhood park. For old times' sake, we enlisted a bumblebee and a flower to come along (do those costumes look familiar?):
The following week, we trekked out to the suburbs to visit a pumpkin patch. There were a lot of interesting sights and activities there, including:
A tire mountain
A hill slide
Buxom scarecrows
Rubber ducky races (obviously)
Tractor rides through the corn maze
Spooky hay bale tunnels
Piglet races (yep, that's right)
And, last but not least, a pumpkin patch
The kids examined all the options...
...before settling on two enormous orange pumpkins for themselves, and a tiny little white one for the baby. We're not sure what they were trying to say about their new sibling, but since the pumpkins were priced by weight, Chris and I were just happy that at least one of the pumpkins was less than 10 pounds.
Rounding out a fun day at the pumpkin patch!
After going to all that trouble for pumpkins, we had to do something special with them. The kids are a bit too small for sharp knives, so we opted for pumpkin painting on the back deck instead.
This is Aaron's "pumpkin painting outfit." Stylish, no?
A little confused about what to do at first
But then they caught on and started having fun!
Little pumpkin
We're painting!
Aaron took great pride in his work
Then it was off to the Lincoln Park Zoo "Spooktacular", where the kids got to check out some animals, do a little trick-or-treating, and watch a performance in the ape house.
Getting ready for his close-up
Um, trick or treat? Hello?
Ah, that's more like it!
Some mice prefer pretzels over cheese.
Yes, this is a different cat costume for Aaron. The first one was cheap, crappy, and shed little black hairs all over our house. So Oma sewed Aaron a better one to use for the rest of the season.
Quiet as a mouse on the bike ride home
Our last Halloween activity was trick-or-treating on Southport. Just like last year, it was a great success, and the weather was beautiful too!
By this time, Aaron was a pro at trick-or-treating
He was determined to collect as much candy as possible
Jill, on the other hand, was content to just ride in the stroller and eat it all.
Happy Halloween!
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