Halloween Night 2007

Zach, Phoebe, and Ben on the night of the traditional neighborhood candy redistribution ritual.

We now have more candy in the house than we can reasonably expect to finish before Easter.

Halloween Parade III

Noble Knight Sir Benjamin (in flightless mode) marches in his pre-school Halloween parade.

He looked significantly happier with the wings on.

Ben the Flying Knight

While dressing for his Halloween Parade, Ben flashes the secret knight hand signal while trying on the wings from Phoebe's costume.

(Phoebe was not amused.)

Halloween Parade II

Phoebe took on two separate identities on Halloween. She wanted to go trick-or-treating as a Pokémon trainer like Zach. But for her school Halloween parade, she dressed up as Tinkerbell.

This allowed her class to meet the federal requirement that states that at least 75% of the girls in any given kindergarden class must be dressed as Disney Princesses.

Halloween Parade

Zach and friends at the school Halloween parade. (Zach is dressed as Ash Ketchum, the main character from the Pokémon cartoons.)

Pumpkin Carving

In recent years, we've refrained from cutting open our Halloween pumpkins, instead opting to having the kids color their pumpkins using special paint markers.

But this year, we spent the evening before Halloween doing a little traditional Halloween pumpkin carving.

We had one large pumpkin to carve, and a smaller white pumpkin that Zach picked out for himself.

While the kids scooped out the seeds out of thier pumpkins, Linda worked on a design to give the pumpkin the face of Pikachu (a Pokémon character), as specifically requested by Phoebe and Ben.

Zach chose a bat silhouette template from a pumpkin carving website for his white pumpkin, and transferred the template onto the pumpkin for me to cut.

(Below: Pikachu the Pokémon, the Houserspawn(tm) Pikachu Pumpkin)

Houserspawn(tm) Classic - October 2004

Fourteen-month-old Ben, dressed as a very frightening sippy cup-toting pumpkin, terrorizes the neighborhood on Halloween night 2004.

Houserspawn(tm) Classic - October 2000

I have a strong preference for classic Halloween costumes. I'll take a vampire, ghost, zombie, or mummy over a Power Ranger, Dora the Explorer, Buzz Lightyear, or a Disney Princess any day.

(Sad but true: out of the 70 or 80 kids that came to our door on Halloween last year, close to 50% of the girls were dressed as Disney Princesses.)

I don't have much say in what costumes the kids choose for Halloween these days, and I'm somewhat nostalgic for the days when they were young enough that I could make the decision for them.

This Vampire Zach costume (from his first Halloween, when he was just 10 mos old) is probably my favorite of any that the kids have worn over the years.

Halloween in September

Last night, I took Ben to one of these seasonal Halloween stores where I bought him a knight costume for trick-or-treating this year.

Ben also has a knight-themed birthday party coming up on Saturday, so, I reasoned, he can get another wear out of the costume during the party.

The thing is, he hasn't taken the costume off since we opened it last night. And while it's funny to watch the neighbors' expressions when they see a 4-year-old knight with us as we walk Zach & Phoebe to school, there's no way this costume stays in one piece until Halloween unless we start limiting the amount of time he can wear it between now and then.

On the plus side, there have been no dragon sightings on our block since Sir Knight Benjamin began patrolling.