Happy Halloween!

We had a fantastic time celebrating Halloween - in fact, we, the parents, were basically Halloweened-out by the end of it. We went trick or treating at the embassy and attended the party there a couple days before the actual big day, then had a church party the day before, then on Halloween we went to Tyler's school's festival and then jumped in the car and raced back to our compound for another hour of trick or treating. It makes me tired just thinking about it again!

Here they are, waiting for dad to get home so they can start their trick or treating fun!

I think their plan for these pictures was "hey, everyone look in a different direction and see how nuts we can drive mom!" Why is it so fine and easy to take other people's family photos, and not my own?!

Waiting for dad so we can go to the embassy. Owen's onesie says "super hero in training." I had a super cute monkey costume, but he would have fried to death in it, so we kept it simple.

I was victorious in convincing Hailey she wanted to be a princess, namely Cinderella, because I told her she could carry around a little mouse (OK, it was really a little puppy but it kind of LOOKS like a mouse) and pretend it was Gus Gus. Fortunatley, she realized she could carry more loot without a little mouse hampering her and she left him at home. Here she is, practicing her royal manners.

The elementary school kids at the school party. Tyler is in there somewhere, just don't ask me where...

Finally! I found him next to another ninja.

They had fun stations set up for all of the little kids. Hailey really got into it - that girl lives for candy.

I challenged Tyler to a donut eating contest. At the last minute, Will decided he wanted to try too. I would have won if my donut hadn't fallen off halfway. Tyler beat us, since I had an attack of "think of how many things are stuck to that donut now that it has hit the floor" and refused to keep eating, and Will mostly just licked his and waited for the high school student to take it off and give it to him :)

By far, the funnest for me was watching the three of them trick or treat together. They would run from door to door, holding hands, being excited about every single piece of candy that got dropped in their buckets. Plus, the weather was nice and mild, which meant I wasn't freezing to death and trying to hurry them along so we could get back to the comfort of our house. The compound was quite serious about trick or treating, with start and end times and rules for parking due to all of the people from other compounds who come to ours for Halloween, since other places don't do anything for it. Our compound went all out and was decorated AWESOMELY! I realized we had to step up our decorating game when I saw our non-American neighbors putting us to shame by the sheer quantity of their decorations. Next year!