A New Zealand Halloween

Halloween really snuck up on us this year.  No fall festivals, apple cider, stores selling Halloween merchandise, or pumpkin carving to get us in the mood.  I asked the boys yesterday what they wanted to dress up as.  With limited resources I threw these two costumes together haphazardly, but they LOVED them.  Ethan knew quickly he wanted to be Shadow (I have no idea...all he said was this it is a character on Super Mario Galaxy he played in CA and that he was all black).  Black clothing and plastic tablecloth was all we needed for this one.  He wanted me to draw "sh" on the sides of his face because that's the sound Shadow started with (he's 4 - can you tell?).  Noah first chose a superhero named Captain Blueberry, but because Ethan and I giggled at the name he became embarrassed and chose Iron Man instead.  His helmet I threw together from a red plastic tablecloth and gold wrapping paper (yes, I know, I shouldn't have gone to all that trouble - lol), I put Ethan's red underwear on the outside of his pants, and we could only locate one red glove, but his smile could not be wiped from his face as soon as I masked him up.  They were in super hero heaven!   

Instead of trick-or-treating this year (since it's not a big holiday out here), we played hide-n-seek-trick-or-treat.   Jonathan and I would hide in the yard outside and the boys would have to find us.  They then said, "trick-or-treat" and we would give them a little candy.  We kept re-hiding until our candy jars were about gone.  Jonathan and I made a lot of dog/cat sounds to lure the boys in our direction, which is I think why our friendly neighbor, Wendy, came to our fence and gave the kids some Cadbury chocolate wrapped up in wax paper.  She must have discovered us because she was wondering if cats were okay (since Jonathan's animal noises always sound like they're dying). 

 The loot:

Making banana ghosts and carmel-candy apples:

Overall, even though our Halloween celebrations only lasted 1 1/2 hours, the boys LOVED it!  Rest assured they will be playing super heroes for the next few weeks.