Halloween happened! It was a good year for costumes.

October 1 is our deadline for finalizing Halloween costumes; no changing your mind after that. Sparky decided to go as Link from the Legend of Zelda games. I started knitting his hat on the way home from Thanksgiving, since I’d finished the knitting project I’d brought with me and had good needles for worsted weight. HRH built the sword and shield at work, cooling out lots of the kids in his programme who saw him doing it.

Owlet wanted to be Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. For that, I initially went way overboard and started planning a full-body black dinosaur-like outfit, then mentally slapped myself for overcomplicating things. I found a pair of black track pants and a black hoodie at the thrift store, and another pair of black track pants to use as the basis for the tail. She chose some sparkly black felt at the craft store for the spikes and wings (you can’t see the sparkles in the photos, as they’re very subtle, but the rhinestones on the front of the hoodie carried the sparkle theme through quite nicely). The eyes are felt as well.

We usually go to HRH’s parents’ house for Halloween, have finger food, and then trick or treat in their neighbourhood. Well, they moved and are now ten minutes from us. We had the same plan, although we were worried about the new neighbourhood for trick-or-treating purposes. My mother-in-law said she counted only ten houses in their development that were decorated, so we figured it would be a short and sweet outing. If it was a bust, then we’d hit the hopping street close to daycare for a few houses.

It turns out the development is packed with young families! Mom never sees them because everyone’s at work/school/daycare all day. Every second house had an open door, pumpkins put out, and all the adults were dressed up. We did half of one street amid crowds of kids, then came back because the kids were cold. Next year is going to be awesome. Owlet was adorable; every time she came down the stairs from a door, she’d shout, “Mum, I got another candy!” in incredulous joy.

Everyone loved their outfits. I have to admit to a vanity here: I love it when people exclaim about my kids’ costumes. I make them so the kids love them, of course; they’re the most important people to satisfy and impress. But having people say how cute or how awesome they look gives both HRH and I a nice warm feeling. We love costuming. Someday we’ll have the time to do it for ourselves again.