I totally forgot to post pictures from Halloween! Better late than never. Shown above: Otis’s (modest) haul.

And here’s the aftermath of the usual overly ambitious costume making:

The kids went for animal themed costumes again this year. We brainstormed which animals they thought were scary. Otis settled on red ant and June is afraid of jellyfish.

The red thing on the right is Otis’s ant head. Sarah came up with the brilliant idea of using an old bike helmet. We stretched and glued an old red t-shirt around it, added some black foam eyes, and stuck a couple of pipe cleaner antennae in the back. The abdomen (top left) and extra legs were also made from old t-shirts and sewn onto a red sweatshirt.

June’s costume consisted of a clear umbrella with a variety of sparkly ribbons tied underneath. Extra ribbons were glued to a black sweatshirt and pants for good measure. The guts of the jellyfish were bunched up lace (top center) with some battery-powered LED strands woven in.

Here’s the ant and the jelly-less jellyfish on the porch:

And a better shot of Otis (dutifully wearing his mask despite poor enforcement) at school:

Here’s jellyfish June with her trick-or-treating chaperone the headless horseman:

And heading off into the traditional Halloween rainstorm:

With my work done, I opted to stay behind with my own (lazy) costume and man the candy bowl and listen to Misfits on the front porch. OR SHOULD I SAY HORSE THE CANDY BOWL?!

This year I put my hoof down about kids saying “trick or treat.” If they just silently held out their bags, I waited patiently and gave them a weird horse stare.

(One more thing: One of the houses the kids went to gave Juniper the prize for best costume of the year!)