Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloweeeen!

How adorable is the Maevester in her little Halloween dress? Pshaw! Like I even need to ask that... ;)
Nuala was a witch this year, and Bran a ninja. Or, as they seem to think it's said, even though we always say the "N" quite clearly... a "HINja". Nuala was all set on being a BYU cheerleader, and after we got her the cute little cheerleading outfit from the Y, pom-poms and all, she switched to a witch. That was fine, she still wears the cheerleading dress quite often. Apparently that's what she wants to be when she grows up, and I will not squash the dream. I know, there's nothing wrong with being a cheerleader (the good kind, not the skanky kind), it's just hard for me to wrap my head around. I fall more into the tomboy category. Shocker, I know!

I was a pirate. Can you guess who Maeve was?? Alvin! From Alvin and the Chipmunks... though I must clarify she's from The Chipmunk Adventure movie, the fabulous one from the late '80s where they're all cute and childlike, not the recent ones where the Chipmunks look like... chipmunks.
Zac was a werewolf. We neglected to scary-fy him, though, and he was not a bit frightening to little children. Heard in his immediate vicinity: "you look kind of like a doggie," and "are you a bear?" and "hey, are you Barf?! From SpaceBalls?" The last one was from a grown-up, but Z thought that was a great costume idea and may have to morph into that next year. I think he coulda pulled off his little black cat costume again, but he wasn't into that...
Bran's assortment of homemade ninja weapons. Three cardboard throwing stars, two sticks he taped paper around on one end to be a sword and a knife :) and nunchuks made out of two toy mace handles and yarn. Formidable.
We had a Halloween party for their friends, and they helped me color/make the games and stuff. Just for the record, usually I'm all for ultimate creativity on their part, but in the above pic I "encouraged" them to color within the lines. Poor stifled children. I let 'em go free on the other games and pics they helped with. I had 4 or 5 things planned and ready to go, but of course we didn't play them. I convinced a couple of kids to do the beanbag toss, but pretty much the party consisted of small children running around and playing. There was a mob of munchkins wielding swords for quite a while. It was great. And that was totally fine. What do you expect of a party for 3-4 year olds? mostly. There were a few younger and a few older, 12 total. The thing is, if I didn't have anything prepared, you KNOW it would have rained and they would have all been stuck inside going crazy.
We had stickers and coloring and bracelet-making, too.
Here is a mass of armed children on the trampoline. Normally we don't allow toys on the tramp, but foam swords aren't too bad. And supervising dads help out. And nets are fantastic. Also, I swiped this pic from my friend Cindy's blog (mom of the little dino/dragon), just to give credit where it's due!
The embassy Halloween party was Friday night. It was fun, trick-or-treating at office doors and going through the Haunted House. Even though last years foray into the Haunted House did not end well, they wanted to do it again. So we did. And Bran was in tears by the time we made it outta there. Good tears, I think. I mean, he still claimed to enjoy it, and so far he doesn't seem traumatized. Time will tell...
Here are N&B with some buddies. Left to right: Blake, Bran, Gabriel, Naia, Keira, Nuala. Blake and Keira are 4-year old twins, and Gabriel (2 yrs) and Naia (4 in Jan) are brother and sister.
Nuala with Sloane, as Dorothy, and Katherine, as Charlotte from Charlotte's Web. Her mom whipped her costume together and I think it's great!
There's a nice long hallway right next to the main party area that always ends up full of kids running sugar off. Back and forth... back and forth... We went to the church Halloween party after this, but the girls and I never made it in the door. They both were conked out in the back, and quite pooped, so only Z and Bran popped in. We also wanted to go to the American School party the next night, but life conspired against us. Ah well, they had plenty of Halloween-ing. They both REALLY want to go trick-or-treating to houses, though, poor deprived kiddos. One of these days...
Mid-jump picture of my ninja. He always wants me to take pics of him jumping, cute fella!
Yeah, Bran and Nuala. But this was also to get my window friends in the shot. We got big cardboard cutouts of a witch, vampire, and Frankenstein this year, and I'm kinda embarrassed to say I'm really gonna miss those cheesy little guys when I stash 'em away in the next day or two. After the initial getting-used-to-coming-downstairs-in-the-morning-to-large-figures-looming-in-the-windows they've really grown on me.
My cuties. They're all wearing Halloween-y shirts, so it fits in this post! Ahhhh, I love Halloween! Good times... (That's for you, Z!)

9 comments:

Aislinn said...

They're all so adorable!!! In the interest of gathering more "what is Zac" opinions, without prompting...Aine thought he was The Big, Bad Wolf, Declan thought he was a bear, and Rowan immediately said, "He's a werewolf, of course!" ;o) Then, Declan pointed at the pic of Frankenstein in the backgroud and asked, "Is that Auntie Fiona back there?" Bwahahahaha!

B&N look ADORABLE in their costumes! (Both of which were immediately accurately identifiable to all here. ;o)) I LOVE Maeve as Alvin, LOL. Nuala told me about that costume when I talked to her last week and she described it very well!

The parties look like so much fun! You're a good mommy for throwing a Halloween party at your house and you make a very pretty pirate. ;o) (Oh wait, is that not tomboyish enough? Um...you make a very...intimidating pirate? ;o))

Aislinn said...

PS: Ciaran is looking at the pics now and he keeps saying, "Ba! Ba!" and pointing at Bran. Awww! He knows who Bran is! (Of course, 'Ba' is pretty easy to say...maybe he just likes how simple Bran's name is, LOL. He did not, however, call Nuala or Maeve 'Ba', so he *does* know the name belongs to Bran!)

Aislinn said...

PPS...I love how you put your artistic ability to work on the beanbag game! Very nice work drawing the pumpkin and witch/cauldron, and bat! They're so cute and friendly and well done!

Tara said...

Maeve looks so, so cute in that dress! I love it. Love Nuala and Bran's costumes too, they are adorable. That was a way good bean bag toss game, bummer that it didn't get much use...maybe next year ;). I love the bottom picture, they are all so cute together. Nuala's hair is way cute too!

Carolyn said...

I agree with Aislinn. Nice job on the been bag toss. Glad you had so much fun with Halloween.

Megan and Greg said...

Looks like fun! We normally try and throw a Halloween party too. I mostly missed Halloween this year though... well, aside from seeing people walking around in costume. I did arrest one person with a painted face though! I was hoping for an arrest of someone in a better costume though... maybe next year?!

That's awesome that there were so many different Halloween parties happening. I'm surprised Zac dressed up. Zac should definitely goes as Barf next year. Then you could goes as Dark Helmet...

Anyway, glad to see that you had a great Halloween!

Greg

zachariah said...

Fiona as Dark Helmet would be awesome!! I have to find a Dark Helmet before next year...

fiona said...

We'll see... Also, Greg, Zac loves dressing up! okay, he *likes* it. He was a cute black kitty cat last year. He wanted to be it again, but I persuaded him to be something a bit more manly.

And Declan... Oh, Declan. Good thing he's so cute!! "Is that hideous green monster Auntie Fiona?" hahahahaha.... ;)

Mike said...

Ha, I am further behind on reading than I thought. It's Christmas day and I am reading about your Halloween. The kids were super cute. The witch I really got (although I do love Nuala), the ninja while Bran was happy I am sure wasn't fooling me. He's just too cute to pull it off.