scary, not cute...

Contrary to their grim faces in this pic (can't you tell they're looking scary?), Sam and Tali had a great Halloween. Because Naomi was sick, we had to cancel dinner at our house, but the bigs trick or treated with neighbors and friends they met up with in the street, went over and trick or treated with friends, and just as we were about to call it an evening, more friends came over and Sam and Boaz went with them to go check out a haunted house down the street. Even the rain didn't put a damper on the festivities.

And even Naomi had a great time. She dressed up in her costume, and we took her outside for a few minutes to greet our neighbors (from distance! :) And when one of Tali's friends knew exactly what she was dressed up as (a Cheetah Ballerina Kitty), Naomi beamed.

And the thing about Halloween is that it really is an awesome community evening. There are very few other times when you can walk outside and greet your neighbors and all walk around together, without even planning it. I loved seeing all the kids dressed up and excited to see each other's costumes and giving visiting neighborhood kids tips about which houses give the best candy. We all belong to a lot of different "communities" but it's so nice to feel apart of our actual neighborhood, too.

It was also really interesting to see the evolution of costumes over the years. Sam insisted on being as scary looking as possible, and I think Naomi's screaming until she realized it was him confirmed his success. And while Tali wasn't quite ready to give up the princessy thing, she conceded with her own creation of Vampire Fairy. And by the end of the evening, she was just a plain vampire. It worked for her.

Though, I'm not sure any holiday is really a good excuse for culinary experiment of Veggie Jacko Burgers. Hmmm...

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I also wanted to share with you a great promotion from Motionbox and Shutterfuly to help you share your Halloween pics and videos.

From now until November 8th, you can get up to 60 free 4x6 prints just for posting and sharing a video on their site. Motionbox seems like an easy way to share videos online and their editing features look like a fun and easy way to play around with your videos. Let me know how it goes if you try them out!

don't mess with HRH Princess Squishyface...

The other night the kids and I went over to Dan's house to hang out with him and the boys while the Kate was at a class. For some unexplainable reason, 6 kids + 2 adults is always an easier combination that 3 kids + 1 adult, so hauled ourselves over there.

Of course, the other draw of the eve was HRH Princess Squishyface, a.k.a. Baby Eva. The girls are so incredibly in love with her that they fight over who holds her first, longer, better and then last night after she pooped in Tali's arms (I wish I could've gotten a photo of Tali's expression) and we changed her diaper, we all laid on the ground with HRH around her blanket as she gurgled charmingly to us.

"I think Baby Eva needs some lipstick," Naomi said to me. "Can I give her some?"

"Let's hold off on that for a bit," I tell her.
"Oh, because her lips are so small it'd be hard to get it on right?"

"Yeah," I say. "That's exactly right."

Meanwhile, as she rubbed Eva's wrist with her finger in the most loving way I've ever seen, Tali looks over at me and says, "Forget the dog. Let's have a baby..."

Oh, my girl... How to tell her that she'll probably have neither for a long, long while?

this is an example of why good family portraits are so hard to get...

wordless wednesday