Star Command meets Godzilla

The Gang: A bat, Buzz, Buddy, a lion, and a dinosaur  (AKA: Alex, Drew, Jacob, Noah, and Ollie)

Let's start by just saying that most of our halloween pictures were accidentally deleted, but not all was lost, just the best.  We still have a collection of pictures taken around the halloween holiday, and by friends on halloween night, and thank them profusely for sharing.

Halloween 2011 started Friday morning when we dressed up the kids and sent Buzz Lightyear and the cutest dinosaur ever to school.  The kids had a parade of costumes Friday morning in the parking lot at their school.

Through the years, we have learned that the ladies at school have some magic powers over Drew to get him to do things he never would at home.  In the most recent case, when we got Drew dressed Friday morning, he would not wear the Buzz Lightyear hood.  He insisted it be tucked into his shirt.  Low-and-behold, his teacher got him to put it on for their parade of costumes.  Maybe they use peer pressure, "see Alex is wearing his hood," or maybe it's bribery, "if you want a cookie...", I don't really know, but I wish they would share their secret.

Friday night was trunk-or-treat at the kid's school, but it rained, so they moved it inside and made it more like a haunted house (without too much haunting for the little ones) trick-or-treat in each of the classrooms.  Each teacher had a halloween display with cauldrons of candy in their classrooms for the kids.  Drew met a couple of friends of his there and both he and Ollie had a ball filling up their pumpkin buckets.

Then, the big night.  We met up with Drew's friends Jacob and Alex, and their families for trick-or-treat fun.  Ollie caught on quickly to the idea of walking up to a stranger's house and getting candy for doing nothing but looking adorable.  He had the sweetest barely audible, "trick-or-treat," and said, "thank you," at every house.  Drew spent the first half holding Alex's hand laughing and shouting as they ran from house to house, and into and out of the street.  The second half of the night he spent "flying" from house to house, and into and out of the street.  Just like on the real Buzz Lightyear, there is a button on Drew's uniform that when he pushes it, his wings (arms) pop out, and away he flies.  

Now it's time to "filter" out the candy that Drew and Ollie can't eat.  Uh-Oh, it seems all the peanut butter cups have all been tampered with.

On a side note, in reference to the blog post Ollie's Follies, you might notice that in all these pictures, Ollie is sporting a shiner.  This happened sometime the week before when he took a diver onto the footboard of our bed.  Monday night, he took another tumble down a few steps when he got his feet tangled in someones electric pumpkin set out on their stoop.  This resulted in a small gash on the back of his hand.  He has grown into a bit of a clumsy, no-fear little boy, and that makes for a bad combination.  One of his favorate activities is to pretend to fall down, but really fall down.  He'll start by making a sound like, "whoa, whoaoa...,"  wobble a little, and face plant on the ground.  No doubt, we'll have our share of broken bones with this one.

The dinosaur costume is a redo, can you guess which is Ollie and which is Drew?

Drew's on-again-off-again girl, Ella
Ollie in the background with his eyes covered,
he didn't seem to mind

Drew's best bud Alex, get these two together,
and there is no-holds bar silliness

Even with a shiner, he is still the cutest little boy ever!