So, Halloween. We basically celebrated it for the entire month of October. This year, the kids were very excited to count down the days on our Halloween advent tree, which belonged to a dear family friend. The first thing they did each morning was go find the ornament for that day.

What did we dress up as?

I was a witch, mostly so I could wear fun socks.

Andy was Tim Tebow.

Henry and Eleanor were a firefighter and princess (preschool party), Spiderman and Supergirl (preschool on Halloween day), and owls for everything else. I found cute owl masks by Jessica of Opposite of Far, and let me just detour this post for a second and say that Jessica is awesome, because she will let you place a last-minute order even though she had temporarily halted mask orders on Etsy, and will have the masks ready for you at the Halloween festival, and then will sell you another mask when you sprint back to the craft tent minutes before the costume parade because you thought Henry had lost his first mask, and then after the first mask turns up at the lost-and-found tent, when you run into her in front of the pizza place where you just had supper, she will let you return the second mask.

The rest of the owl costume? Sewn by yours truly. I cut up clothes from the Goodwill Outlet into feathers, and sewed them onto a long-sleeve t-shirt. I hardly ever sew, so I had an up-until-2-am, Tim Gunn “make it work” moment. But now I can say that I’ve made them Halloween costumes. That means I can shop in the Target costume aisle guilt-free next year, right?

How did we celebrate?

By going to the pumpkin patch with preschool.

By playing with friends, listening to music, bouncing, and marching in the costume parade at the Irvington Halloween Festival. This was our third year attending; it’s a fun tradition we’re forming with Henry and Eleanor.

Another tradition we’ve started is going to Zoo Boo, so we headed there for trick-or-treating, sticking our heads through cut-outs, looking at animals, and more bouncing.

This year it was impossible to get any good photos of Henry and Eleanor in their costumes. They were so into the holiday and wanted to go and see and do and be with their friends.

The pre-trick-or-treating photoshoot on the driveway? Didn’t happen. The kids were too obsessed with catching up with the pack of neighborhood kids that they idolize. This was pretty much Andy’s and my view of the kids that night.

We still have candy left, if anyone would like a piece.

Henry and Eleanor had so much fun this season, and Andy and I had so much fun watching the kids have fun. I know everyone’s starting to get all fired up for Christmas, but in my book, Halloween’s the best, hands down.