Waldo, Elsa and Spider-Man

The week before Halloween, Collin's class had character dress up day.  I showed Collin lots of examples online, but he chose Waldo.  Easy enough, an $8 purchase on the internet and we were set.  His school has "family Fridays" where we can walk the kids to their class, so Maya and I came along to snap a few pictures before he started his kindergarten day.  

She's always happy to skip into his elementary school, despite her expression here!

Our Waldo came home excited about the compliments he received throughout the day.

On the Friday before Halloween, our church had a trunk-or-treat.  Members provided games out of the trunks of their cars.  We kept the Waldo theme going, and hid Waldo among the tons of stuffed animals our kids own. We invited the community that lives near our church, and our kids had a blast eating too much candy and playing on bounce houses while I almost lost my voice by the end of the night conducting our trunk game.  

Our game was to hide a small Waldo under one of three plastic cups, and then spin the cups around to see if they could find Waldo.  Children who played our game thought they were going to win a stuffed animal and were always a little disappointed with a Hershey bar!  Plus those eight year olds are good - at least half the time I had no idea where Waldo was in the cups I was spinning, and yet they picked him at least 80% of the time!

After a crazy rainy Friday night and all day Saturday, the rain stopped just in time for trick or treating.  We once again crashed our friends' neighborhood with the best block party.

Spider-Man and Elsa.  This is probably the 25th time these have been worn in the last few weeks.  My kids love dressing up, which means we have Elsa glitter EVERYWHERE!  And we had a panicked search for the Spider-Man mask minutes before we were supposed to leave, since it's been worn and taken off in various rooms throughout our home a few times each day.

Maya wore her dress the Friday before Halloween to a fairy tale ball at her school.  She told me that after I put on the dress I should tell her, "Beau-ti-FUL!" in a loud, singing voice.  Clearly this one does not have a self-esteem problem!  And clearly we tell her how beautiful (and smart and strong and silly) she is ALL THE TIME! 

Maya was not a fan of the witch that made noises, but Collin was game to pose with it -  

We walked down the street to the block party, full of pizza, chicken nuggets, snacks and desserts.  Collin made a bee-line for the doughnut game (you're not supposed to use your hands, cheater)!

Here's most of the gang of kids.  The cul-de-sac where they meet is across the street from my great aunt and uncle's old home, so I grew up visiting the neighborhood.  As an adult, I am so jealous of how well the neighbors know one another and what a sweet group of families live here.  Luckily, we've been able to meet several through their schools and church.  Collin again saw lots of kinder and soccer friends, and my kids (front row) are sitting in between some friends from church and two of Maya's friends from pre-school.

Walking along, lollipop in mouth.  She wasn't the fastest trick-or-treater, but she ate the most candy.

Stopping along the route for a photo opp.  The homes near the block party starting point have families sitting on their driveway, so their jack-o-lanterns were filled with minimal walks up to front doors.

Another lollipop!

Collin didn't touch his candy until we got home, but he did have fun with his glow stick / weapon.

Thankful for these beautiful ballerinas and their wonderful family that invited us allowed me to invite ourselves to join them for Halloween again.

We stopped by three homes in our neighborhood once we got home, but one of our neighbors invited us inside and we got to meet his family more than we had in the three years we've lived on our street!  Halloween 2015 was a great night with friends, fun meeting neighbors, and a sugar-filled evening with Spider-Man and Elsa!