Boo!

When I was young, Halloween consisted of two activities: the carnival at the elementary school (complete with costume parade), and trick-or-treating immediately thereafter.
This year our Halloween festivities included:
*trunk-or-treat the Tuesday before at the church
*Wives' Club party at Bonnie's house (so fun! Thanks, Bonnie!)
*trick-or-treating at the residency clinic
*doughnuts and cider at The [Pumpkin] Patch in Michigan
*a festive Halloween birthday party for Halle (for which my girls decided not to dress up but still enjoyed immensely)
* and finally, trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.
Holy smokes!
And now, pictures:

Mimi (as Lucy, from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe) and Kasey (as Pocahontas), inseparable.
The residents' kids, in costume. We had lost some at this point, and Bella was refusing to wear her hot-hot-hot hood inside the building.
The weather at The Patch was a bit brisk--brr!, but the kids enjoyed swinging on the tires and tossing the leaves anyway. Even Annabel tolerated being picked up and carried and picked up and carried again with greater patience than she can usually muster.Aren't these leaves a great backdrop?
Mimi, although you can't see it here, had a belt with a pouch for a glass bottle full of Lucy's magic potion and a sheath for her knife. She simply refused to be "Lucy the schoolgirl" and insisted on "Lucy the Princess." Darn it. The trick-or-treating in our neighborhood is absolutely ridiculous. Annabel--the BABY, for pete's sake, came home with at least four full-size candy bars in her trick-or-treat bag, and she only hit about half the houses. My strategy was to let her ride in the wagon until she fussed and then she could walk up to a house and get some candy and walk back to the wagon and eat the candy while riding in the wagon until she fussed again. (See the beautiful simplicity.) John decided about halfway through that we weren't maximizing our candy potential, so he took matters into his own hands and helped her trick-or-treat at each house.
The Bradys joined us this year, which made it a lot more fun for us. Olivia, as Susan from the same book, was equipped at the beginning of the evening with a plastic bow, arrows, and quiver. Those were unceremoniously dumped in the wagon when they got "too heavy." Mimi became our candy distributor when we arrived back home. I think she liked giving out the candy as much as getting the candy herself. (She's more a meat-lover than a treat-lover.)And, in case any of you are in the market for making up some dress-up dresses, I should let you know that I've discovered a treasure trove for materials. Thrift-store prom dresses are amazing! There is plenty of fabric in one strapless adult dress to make a darling little girl princess dress. Plus, the quality is better than the fabric usually labeled as "costume", the trims and zippers are reusable, and the hems are already done. Sweet! (And the cost--$5 for a whole dress--is a better bargain than buying the materials myself.) Just thought you might want to know.