The Halloween That Was

Well, it's the middle of November. I've failed miserably at VeganMoFo, my son is sick with the pukes and I have a folder on my desktop titled "Halloween" that's been staring me in the face for a while now. 

I'm officially bowing out of VeganMoFo. It was fun while it lasted, but it didn't last long enough. Maybe next year I'll go back to a more traditional food-based theme. 

So, here are some photos from Halloween. Get comfortable. There's a lot. 

Vegkins had a Halloween potluck party the weekend before Halloween. I didn't have much time to take photos, so here are the two that I got of Liam in his bee costume: 

 

And this is the only one I got of Anna in her duck costume. The thing on her back is the duck head that she wears like a hood. You'll just have to trust me that it was cute.

We went to North Dakota for Halloween to celebrate my eldest brother's 40th birthday. It was a surprise party, Star Wars themed.

Here's my family. Leia and 3PO made some cute kids, huh?

My costume was ... um ... a little tight.

And the kids when wild.

Cousin Joe rocked the lightsaber.

Cousin Zach rocked the blaster.

Cousin Ella rocked the hair and the lightsaber.

There was a time, not too long ago, that the blasters and light sabers would have bothered me. But I'm fine with it now, and I actually see it as a potentially positive outlet and exploration. Which reminds me, I need to finish reading Killing Monsters and then write a review of it. 

Zach and his dad, Jango Fett.

My sister-in-law is nothing if not creative. Check out the ice in this punch bowl.

Cousin Henry was one of three Yodas.

My brother Mike won the award for most creative costume.

And his daughter Kate (the newest addition to our ever-growing brood), won the award for cutest. There's a cat in Star Wars, right?

Henry regards Kate.

Henry kisses Kate.

 

Ella tickles Anna.

That night, the brothers rented some ice time and played hockey. We're not a big hockey-playing family. Our school was too small to have a hockey team. But we all enjoyed skating growing up, and tried to play hockey on the small slab of ice the volunteer fire department would make beside the firehouse.

Anyway, it was fun and exhausting and now I sort of want to start playing hockey for fun again.

The next day (which was Halloween), we drove back to St. Paul, but made an extended stop at cousin Zach's to go trick-or-treating. This was in Buffalo, which is about an hour north of St. Paul.

You may or may not remember back in September when I posted photos of some pumpkins in my dad's garden. He carved the kids' names into them with a nail. This is what they ended up looking like. Pretty cool. 

Liam really got into trick-or-treating. We pulled him around in a wagon and he wanted to get out for each house. It was really fun.

In case you're wondering, the kids traded candy at the end of the night. Anna and Liam gave all of their non-vegan stuff to cousin Zach and Zach gave most of his vegan stuff to Anna and Liam.

Anna still doesn't really seem to care about not having non-vegan stuff (and she's not one to keep her feelings hidden, so if she cared, we would know about it). I keep waiting for that to change, but maybe it won't. We talk every once in a while about why we don't eat non-vegan food, and who knows, maybe she actually understands and genuinely doesn't want to eat it.

This is what our pumpkin looked like when we got back home (the one in the middle has a hole in it, created by an industrious squirrel, I think). It was a wet and warm week in the lead-up to Halloween. Now it's freezing and there's snow on the ground. What a difference a few weeks make.

And just the for hell of it, here are more photos of Liam in his R2-D2 costume.

You can see his fake smile in these first two.

I don't think I'll be posting anything else before Thanksgiving, so have a happy one!