On the cusp between day and night, summer and fall, life and death... boo!

Halloween!

Dutch went as a Hogwarts student. She made some badges (a prefect badge and a Gryffindor badge, in case you're curious) out of construction paper this weekend. Skipper and Baby Baby watched.

Skipper decided to make her own badge.

Pumpkins were carved. Both kids were really manic, and Dutch was cracking Skipper up. Skipper wigged out when she realized what pumpkin-carving entailed, and refused to allow "her" pumpkin to be eviscerated. "DON'T CUT MY PUMPKIN!" she screamed.

Dutch was really, really happy with her costume, which was essentially one of her more school-uniform-type outfits (she loves uniforms, and would be thrilled if she had to wear one for school) plus the wand she earned as compensation for having her tooth yanked, and a cheapo robe Cook found at Goodwill. It had this awful golden collar thing that we were planning to remove, to make it look more like the robes the students wear in the movies, but Dutch decided that she wanted to keep it, because "it's more fashionable, Mom. Those movies were made a few years ago, but this kind of collar is fashionable now."

 Skipper went as an eggplant, because she wanted to wear her purple pants. Unfortunately, her wonderful eggplant hat, which inspired the costume idea, has disappeared, so we made do with a headband, pipe cleaner, and some green construction paper. Of course, the headband came off about three houses into the trick-or-treating, so Skipper was just stomping up to people's houses in a purple shirt and pants, like one of those obnoxious teenagers who go around on Halloween wearing a silly hat over their normal clothes, grabbing giant handfuls of candy. 

We had a technical problem with the flash, but you get the idea.

The kids had a pretty good time. Skipper melted down and had to be taken home early, and even Dutch finally got tired of lugging her overflowing bag around, and they both got to bed way too late. But those are things that are supposed to happen on Halloween, and I consider it a great success.