Scare and a Half

I have more pictures than words to fill this space today; Halloween came and went faster than you can blink an eye.

Luke went as the Scream ghost, complete with a mask that bleeds when you pump the blood through a little heart-pump device. It wasn't too easy for him to see through the mask in the dark, especially when he was trying to climb stairs while trick-or-treating, and apparently it was sweatier than a locker room inside. We made it through about four walk streets before he was begging to get to our final party destination just so that he could have a drink of water. When we got to the party, he found his friends and they positioned themselves at the front of the house handing out candy. Even though he's too proud of his costume to admit it, I think he was happiest mask-off, handing out candy.

Side note: For reasons too complicated to explain, I bought the mask but no robe. We were set to borrow a robe from Luke's friend, but we were never able to follow through on that. So on Saturday, I hauled out Dave's grandma's trusty 1952 sewing machine and I whipped up a scary Scream robe. That is one nice-looking robe, let me tell you. And it sure beats last year's costume (the death eater robe that ripped in half before trick-or-treating even started) in quality and durability.

Other side note: This picture was taken by one of the moms in Luke's class. She's a professional photographer and she captured these great portraits of every single kid in the class acting our their costumes.

Zach went as Batman Cat, which he repeatedly had to emphasize to people as they exclaimed, "Oh - look - it's Batman!" To which he would patiently point out his handmade ears and tail, and explain that he was, in fact, a cat. 

Dave and I had to laugh when we reminisced about our first trick-or-treat outing with infant Zach in a stroller. I think he's walked every year since then; and he's never once complained about walking (probably a little more than a mile, all told), or about the insane crowds of people on the walk streets, or about carrying a heavy load of candy. This is a kid with priorities, after all.

On Friday Zach had a Halloween party at school, and afterwards I took him and his friend Brensan to a pumpkin patch. What good luck I had to have two of the most photogenic kids on the planet at a pumpkin patch, in costume, at the most picture-friendly scenery of the season, with the two of them laughing hysterically and romping through the whole afternoon. I'm going to hold off on publishing pics of Brensan, but this one of Zach should give you an idea of what was going on. They had an epic hide-and-seek game going through the folds of a teepee at the pumpkin patch, and it was a great opportunity for me to experiment with the "kids and pets" setting on my new camera (i.e. things that move fast).

Last but not least, the beloved pumpkin race was on Sunday. Zach and Dave built their Happy Cat with speed in mind; I made Lego Man solely for looks. And true to form, when it came time to race, Lego Man went on a diagonal, did a little spin, and came to a stop facing uphill on the race course, as if posing on a runway for the crowds. Happy Cat, however, was off at a blazing pace in his heat until - BAM! - he got sideswiped by a massive wayward pumpkin careening off in the wrong direction. We didn't get a chance to enter him again, so that was it for this year. But for next year, we're thinking big. We're going to build a pumpkin that has it all - looks, speed, and built-in pumpkin defense systems.