Oden Adventures

Having arrived back from Oregon the day before, we packed all of our Halloween into the day of this year.  In the afternoon, we carved pumpkins and Vianne helped clean hers out for the very first time!  A little hesitant about the yucky stuff inside...

 ...but then she goes for it!

 The master artist at work

 Vianne requested a scarecrow (left) and Oliver let Mama do whatever she wanted ;-)

 A bit of a hasty flower for me...

 ...and Patrick's raven on a branch work of art!

 Very cute all in a row

 Just before night fell, we got the kids into their costumes...neither protested "recycled from previous events" costumes, so we went with Sheriff Callie and Thor...

 but Thor didn't care much for keeping his hat on.

 I'm not sure why he did this pose, but it was awful cute.

 Daddy makes a valiant last ditch effort at getting the hat on...

 Vianne was a trick-or-treat pro from last year but Oliver was adorably confused about why we were going for a walk in costume, why people had those cool decorations up, and then once he got the hang of the knocking on doors part down, seemed very confused why we kept knocking on doors but not going inside (I think he was used to going to many houses from our Oregon trip!).  Our new neighborhood is very kid-friendly with lots of young families so a great place to trick-or-treat; a lot of houses were giving out candy and nobody had anything gory as far as decorations.  

Vianne was utterly delighted with the whole process; even though we only knocked on maybe 20 doors (those who were home) and only walked about 3 blocks, and her pumpkin was only about 1/3 full, on the way home she exclaimed, "I GOT SO MUCH CANDY!!"  I love her innocent exuberance and this blissfully ignorant stage before Halloween becomes gluttonous. 

Back home, we lit the pumpkins and welcomed our own trick-or-treaters (for the first time in our marriage, we've lived in a place that gets them!), and I think Vianne was as excited about having people come to our door and giving away candy as she was getting candy at others' doors!