Our Halloween festivities actually started the Friday before Halloween. The entire family went to our neighbor's (Americans) Halloween party just down the street. The girls were ecstatic for an excuse to wear their costumes early! Leena was a queen and Taryn was a fairy. Greg dressed up as Lance Armstrong complete with syringes hanging from his arms. I actually was double booked for the evening and attended a friend's surprise birthday party early in the evening and then met up with my party-going family later on. Here is a picture that Greg took using the timer on the camera since I was not at home. It's not great, but you can get the idea!
On the Sunday before Halloween, Greg had to go to Sweden so that left the girls and I on our own to celebrate the rest of this fun holiday. In our house, Halloween is a VERY close second to Christmas in the favorite-holiday-ranking order. The week started out with pumpkin carving with Leena's brownie troop. They let Taryn participate also, so I was in too deep in pumpkins in order to get any pictures. However, I must admit that this was my first time carving a pumpkin. Greg usually has this honor and I don't ever remember doing it as a kid. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was a lot of fun and much easier than I had anticipated!! I am ready to carve one on my own next year! Here are the pumpkins that the girls carved almost entirely on their own!! Granted, they used a stencil for the design, but did all the carving themselves! They loved it!
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| The girls proudly pose with their pumpkins. |
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| Taryn's "cat" pumpkin |
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| Leena's "silly face" pumpkin |
Naturally, the girl's school did some Halloween celebrating as well. Taryn's class had a "wild rumpus" parade through the school. They spent over a week painting their "Where the Wild Things Are" costumes (made with paper bags) and then walked all around the school scaring everybody. It was fun!!
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| Taryn in the parade - front shot. |
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| Taryn as seen from the back. She painted and made that costume 100% on her own! It was seriously better than I could have done! So cute! |
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| Another parade shot. |
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| I asked Taryn's teacher if we could walk through Leena's classroom. Leena's class had no idea we were coming. Here is Leena peacefully working at her desk until a bunch of little monsters came in! |
And here is a little video clip of the monster parade through Leena's classroom. Leena is in the white shirt on the left side of the screen. You can hear all the kindergartners going "boooo" and "grrrrr"! Leena doesn't quite know what to think!
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| Taryn and her posse at the post parade celebration. The boy in the yellow shirt is Taize and I'm quite certain he is 100% in love with Taryn! They chased each other for a solid hour after this pic was taken. |
And FINALLY it was time for trick-or-treating!! There has been a countdown going on in our house all month followed by "why does Halloween have to be on the LAST day in October?" FYI, when Leena becomes President of the USA, she is going to change Halloween to October 1st - so all kids rejoice! Since this area has so many Americans living here, some of the German kids do like to participate, but it's NOTHING like Halloween American-style. So, in order to ensure that we do the holiday justice, we spent the evening on base with all the other Americans in the area (which are a lot!). It was a bit crazy, but a lot of fun!! This year, we took some of our American friends who are here working for John Deere and thus, have no base privileges. We also took Silke and Tom. It was Tom's first time trick-or-treating. Needless to say, the language barrier did not slow him down! Turns out all kids know how to speak "candy". Silke taught him how to say "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" and Tom sounded just like any other American 5-year-old. No accent! It was amazing! Tom kept saying "look at all the chocolate I have"! We loved being able to share this American custom with Tom and Silke. We all had a great time!
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| Our trick-or-treat gang! |
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| The first house was manned by a gorilla. It took the kids a few minutes to get up the courage to approach! |
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| My ladies. A queen (I forgot to pack her crown!!) and a fairy. |
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| Taryn and Tom filling their loot bags! |
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| Taryn and Tom pose for a pic. Turns out, Tom is quite the trick-or-treater! |
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| Leena keeps a close eye on Britta whenever we are with her. So sweet!! |
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| Taryn and one of her BFFs, Elle. |
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| Taryn has her pic made with a friendly witch who was handing out candy. |
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| If you look closely, you can see that is a HUGE spider behind them! |
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