Croconaw, of course. But not Pikachu!

Here are the costumes the kids put together this year for Halloween. They are both pokemon. Emeth is Croconaw. And Istra is definitely not Pikachu! She is Pichu, obviously, as anyone can see!

Pictures (click for more) aren't very good. But anyhow, and here are also their pumpkins. We'll leave it as an diverting exercise for the reader to guess which is whose.

Meanwhile....

... but that's another story.

UPDATE! And then Grammie showed up with a severed head!! For real....

How Shy is Shy Guy? Not too shy for candy...

So, both kids, decided this year for halloween they wanted to be "Shy Guy". Shy Guy is a fairly minor character in various Mario Bros. video games (the main one they've been seeing him in lately is Mario Party 9). It's a bit weird how popular Shy Guy seems to be, in general. I've seen photos of people having the little fellow tattooed onto themselves, even.

He is actually one of the bad guys (I believe he started out, or may still be, merely a minion of one of the main bad guy characters); but a particularly cute bad guy, I suppose, with his mysterious big-eyed bewildered expression, and cozy looking hoodie. Shy guys are most seen in a red hoodie, but other colours are possible when there are multiple Shy Guys around.

Anyhow: mommy had the idea of making a paper mache mask shape on a balloon. The kids, with a bit of guidance, then painted on the features. We got a couple of cheap big second hand hoodies of appropriate colours. We fashioned the belts and straps from various dollar store materials. The kids were pleased with how it all worked out. They took the costumes to school for the costume parade, and got a fair amount of attention out of it. Then the masks even stood up to the light rain of the evening trick-or-treating.

Click the picture below if you want to see more Halloween images. Of course you surely are in great anticipation of seeing how the kids pumpkins turned out...

Creepers and Piggos

This Halloween found the world divided truly into two types of people. Those who know Minecraft, and those who think this is the1950s. When anyone who knows Minecraft saw the kids, there was an instant bond and much respect bestowed. Everyone else said: robots! Seriously, when was the last time you saw a home made box robot costume. I estimate (completely ignorantly, really) it'd probably be about 1959. So, what I mean to say is that people universally lauded the little block heads as awesomely in touch with the coolest of modern culture (Minecraft!), or else as delightfully and stylishly retro. And a good time was had by all.

(But seriously. Robots???)

We won't mention the rain.

Okay, we will mention the rain. The drizzle was constant, and ever so slowly and constantly increasing in intensity. Why didn't we bring an umbrella? I don't know. I did take the time to frantically and desperately (after all that work!) coat the box heads with plastic wrap before leaving... so the boxes kids had protection. And that's all that really matters, right?

More pictures of our pixelated boxes, and the booty flowing therefrom, can be found here, if desired.

And when we got home, and finished dancing on the piles of candy, we had a frighteningly sugar-fueled little video visit with Mommy in Halifax.