An Elephant, a Retro Dino, and Yet Another Skunk

Halloween! Finally posting, with pics!

Okay this was a super easy costume year (well compared to last year anyway, when I was fabric-gluing felt petals onto a pillowcase to make Anneliese into the best little owl that a kid has ever been to her big brother Harry Potter, which was adorable but haaaaaard) so all I had to do was just... step kids into costumes and zip them up. No face paint, no sewing, no gluing, just the normal please. put. your. shoes. on. (x100) that happens anytime we leave the house.

So, they stepped, we zipped, and then we had ourselves the beginnings of an adorable zoo:

We put together our little menagerie, posed them for pictures, and went trick-or-treating around one block, as per our usual. Charlotte was surprised and delighted at every house, EVERY HOUSE, that she got a treat. She would turn around and (precariously) toddle down every house's steps, wide-eyed and grinning and saying tweeeeeeet!

I am officially sad that no one else gets to wear the skunk, actually. It has been retired, ready for a niece or nephew, done with our little family. But it was adorable while it lasted, and they all wore it so well!

They look so so alike, don't they? And also so different. Good grief I am full of predictable mommy cliches right now. I will stop.

At least this elephant has many more years of Bumgarner Halloweens in front of it (right Liam?) --

Oh, and here is another thing that is cute! Remember how we the stegosaurus costume came on loan from Iowa, because we have the best friends who have the best families? Yeah. That ended up being awesome. Here is Nathan wearing it, after Another Nathan wore it exactly twenty-five years ago today.

1988 and 2013

And that should be enough to make any Halloween curmudgeon smile, myself included.

Also, Rex dressed up. As another kind of dinosaur. So, that happened. (No, I do not know what kind, do not ask me what kind.)*

Happy Halloween!

*curmudgeon