Lukas decorated all of the little pumpkins/gourds from our garden
Halloween is always one of my favorite holidays, but seemed to be extra fun this year. Nothing extra special happened, but just lots of good times at the pumpkin patches, decorating, trick-or-treating, etc. Although I wasn't sure how Marieke was going to do on actual Halloween night. She LOVES LOVES LOVES candy, but was also very scared with all of the decorations. There was one house in our neighborhood that had particularly scary decorations that we have to walk by/drive by on our way to school everyday. Everyday, as we'd head out she'd ask "Scary house?" and I'd have to say yes we are going past the scary house. She'd then cover her eyes until the house was no longer in sight. I thought she might freak out when we went trick-or-treating and all the kids were out in costume.
Going past the "scary house"
She was very excited about her costume - Oompa-Loompa - mostly because the costume involved her holding a lolipop. Lukas was a vampire, Rob a wizard, and me - who swore she'd plan ahead for a costume this year - failed to do so again - so haphazardly put together a "spider/witch/woman" costume in the last minute.
On Halloween day, Marieke suddenly got sick and puked 7 times from about noon to 5. Not wanting to miss our evening of trick-or-treating, we plowed ahead - putting Marieke in her costume and then covering it with an old t-shirt until we were ready to head out the door. I got to carry an extra bag with towels and wet wipes for the inevitable cleanup. We were able to cover a few blocks of our neighborhood. Marieke lost all fear and was totally into the candy. After about 45 minutes, I could sense all of Marieke's candy was about to come back up. I held out the towel for her - and forever I will have the image in my brain of a little green-haired munchkin looking at me with a sort of bewildered look in her eyes as multi-colored puke came out. Anyway.... Marieke and I headed back home to pass out candy while Rob & Lukas met up with friends to get more.
This year I finally pulled out The Coffin. I made The Coffin about 10 years ago when I was still single and taking a woodworking class (hmmm... and I wondered why I was still single?). The Coffin is huge & a pain to get out of the attic, but Lukas was very keen to set it up this year. I'm so glad we did. It was a perfect spot for Marieke to chill out and pass out candy while still being in the action.
Later, Lukas and friends had an awesome time hiding out in the coffin and scaring other and older! trick-or-treaters when they came to get candy.
