This Is Halloween

The other day Darin said, "As a kid, I went trick-or-treating once each year. ONCE." 

Halloween is not just a one day thing anymore. Maybe it never was, depends on who you ask. But we've lived in some fun places that do city Halloween stuff and then the universities tend to do things, and church...and we just can't say no to candy! Actually, it's a little stressful for me to think about all the candy our kids have gotten, I really just can't say no to fun family activities...or candy, let's be honest. No self-control.

Friday we went downtown to do trick-or-treating in the Commons. Everything was set up for Wizarding Weekend so Shae got to follow Harry's footsteps through the library while looking for candy. I tried to explain to him that Harry was under the invisibility cloak (!!) which is why all we saw were his footprints, but he just kept saying, "Where? Where's Harry?"

We got a good taste of Ithaca going in to some super hippy dippy incense filled stores in the Commons. 

...and our favorite consignment store. That little koala girl. Can't get enough.

She had no idea what was going on but went right along with it.

Love these little animals. 

Shae was so timid the whole time which is not like him at all. He was just so focused on all the costumes he was seeing all around him and kept doing double takes. I could just see his little mind spinning, "Super Why...Captain America...Winnie the Pooh...a dragon!" At one point he did shout out, "Mom, these are all the guys from my shows and books!" And I loved when we ran in to the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda. We had just been listening to Wicked that day and I was explaining Elphaba and Glinda to him, and then we saw them! In person! So cute to watch his excitement. 

Finally getting to taste some of the treasures she worked so hard to get.

Right after trick-or-treating in the Commons we headed over to the church for our branch activity. We got our zoo theme on. We really should apply for some park ranger jobs or something. I was pretty happy with our thrift store shirts and amazon hats. 

Devouring pizza!

The primary presidency did a fun little game for the kids before doing some trick-or-treating around the building.

Always fun to hang out with the other branchers and let the kids run wild in the gym.

On Saturday, Darin was on campus all day working his tushy off so the kids and I went back downtown to enjoy more Harry Potter. While there was some stuff set up on Friday, the REAL Wizarding day chalk full of activities and vendors and awwwweesssommme stuff was Saturday.

We started off at the library for their Halloween story time and then wandered around looking at stuff for...not as long as I would have liked...but one of the double stroller tires busted during the week so I only had a single stroller with Shae walking next to me, quickly getting tired and crowds of people to walk through, so we did what we could.

We stood in line for far too long to get some Gryffindor balloon swords made. They were SO cool for all of 10 minutes before parts of them started popping and kids started sobbing...

Shae was very adament about getting a green sword. I tried to convince him not to go with the Slytherin colors, but he could not be swayed from his beloved green. 

To bad the kids weren't older to totally Harry Potter geek out with me. 

So impressed by how many people dressed up! There were witches and wizards all over the place. We saw some Hagrids, Dobbys, Voldemorts, and Beletrixes too. 

I also thought it was so cool how many free activities there were! Wizarding Duels, Being sorted by the Sorting Hat, balloon animals, face painting, quidditch, wizard chess, etc. 

Loved watching these kids yell, "Stupify!" and "Expeliarmus!" at one another.

We walked past the Quidditch pitch on the way out and they were announcing through a loud speaker just like they do in the books/movies and I totally felt like I was there, at Hogwarts.

The actual day of Halloween the kids and I made mummy-dogs for dinner. Darin was still MIA at this point...poor paper-writing soul. We went and picked him up on campus to come trick-or-treating with us though (yay!) and were kind enough to bring him some mummies to enjoy.

 Some little picky boy I know didn't want his hot dog to be a mummy. "I just want a regular one."

I thought my camera was charging all day, just to get out to trick-or-treat and realize that it had 2% battery left. So, two pictures is all we got. One with the firetruck that drives around and pulls over to give candy in certain neighborhoods. I promise that that is Belén trying to smile, not look scared and have no idea why Shae decided to squat...like a panda.

 And the other...the kids with all their little church friends. It was really fun to walk around with all of them. At this door, the guy looked at Shae and was like, "And you must be, a pig?" Shae cracked up laughing, slapped his knee and through giggles said, "Nnnnoooo...silly, I'm a paaaanda!" 

Oh the joys of Halloween.