I enjoyed setting the table with Great Aunt Dorothy's table cloth and napkins, and using Grandma Z's silverware along with our wedding china and crystal!

The Sunday before Halloween we went to our neighbors (the ones who moved but bequeathed us our chickens) for their annual Halloween Pumpkin Carving Party. Bean and Lulu each carved their own pumpkins and Eddie carved his on Halloween afternoon.

Eddie did an awesome Lumpy Space Princess from Adventure Time! (It had a light inside that changed colors...)

From our neighbors annual Halloween Party (Saundra gave us her chickens). 

Bean's pumpkins is the full cat profile with the white plastic pumpkin fangs around it (second in from the left on the bottom row) and Lulu's is on the bottom, on the wooden chair beneath the others!

Eddie's favorite holiday is Halloween. He takes the day off from work and sets about getting everything ready for the upcoming night. Eddie is definitely a big kid at heart when it comes to Halloween!  While I did the grocery shopping that afternoon, he set about making up costumes for a majority of the Dearie Flock. He did such a great job, didn't he?! Lulu made candy bags for them (adorable!) too...

Bean made this ghost costume, but Eddie and I agreed it ended up looking like Zero from A Nightmare Before Xmas.

Eddie, crafty guy that he is, pulled this No Face costume together on his own. I know, so impressive, huh?!

Eddie removed the top layer from my hand-held whisk broom to make this Hawaiian skirt, but it turned out so cute, I didn't mind!

Every yard needs a superhero flamingo, and Eddie did an awesome job with this one, too!

A close-up of one of the candy bags Lulu made for the flamingos...

We even had a Groucho Marx flamingo, how cool is that?!

Eddie snapped this picture of Bean while she waited in line at her school event to play a game. I dare you to try to keep from laughing! This is what she does now when you take her picture, she get's all bug-eyed and caught by surprise...

BTW, those are her natural eyebrows, no make-up.

The Friday night of the girls school Halloween parties, Eddie and I pulled together our own go-to-stand-by costumes as well: a ship captain and a circus girl. I love that we have enough costume stuff (or just regular clothes in my closet for me, for that matter) to pull something together when necessary!

Bean, meanwhile, decided to she wanted to to be the Box Prince from an episode of Adventure Time:

Luckily, we had the perfect box from presents Grandma Mary and Bumpa had recently sent...

Bean's school Halloween fundraiser was the same night as Lulu's Spookarama party. Lulu caught a ride to school with a classmate, while Eddie and I got ready with Bean for her school party up the street. Bean didn't want to wear her Box Prince costume to school, especially since it was raining out. She opted to just be a kitty cat, her go-to costume, and she was super cute!

Hopefully you can see her everyday boots. They are metallic pink with ears on them and look like a pony or bunny.

Vampire teeth are always a good idea!

Lulu decided awhile ago that she wanted to be No Face for Halloween this year.

No Face is from the anime movie "Spirited Away." In the movie, No Face has gold pieces he hands out...

Lulu set about making her No Face mask at the start of September and it turned out really, really good!  I bought her a bag of river rocks at the Dollar Store at the end of September and she painted all the pieces gold one afternoon when she got home from school.

She needed a black cape like costume to wear with her mask, so between the two of us brainstorming, she had me order a long, black table cloth on Amazon that she paid for. It came to $10 and had free shipping! When it arrived, we brainstormed again and figured out how she wanted the tablecloth stitched up to wear (I did the sewing). Together, we collaborated on how to make the face mask sit more securely on her head, and I found some old black fabric leftover from a slip I made five years ago to use with the mask, too. Vintage black cotton gloves that used to belong to my grandmother helped complete the look!

Lulu couldn't wait for Spookarama, her school's annual Halloween fundraiser to arrive...

Friday, October 26th arrived and Lulu was so excited when she got home from school. Tonight was Spookarama! Then, she mentioned how two of the boys at school told her masks were not allowed at Spookarama. This couldn't be true, could it???  Alas, it was. She was nearly in tears at the news. I consoled her and told her that we'd come up with a workaround, a loophole in the rule. What if I pulled the rabbit out of the hat in the next hour and ten minutes before she left for Spookarama? 

Below, my lightening fast handiwork: I cut out a new cardboard mask, painted it with chalk paint (luckily, chalk paint dries fast, especially when you blow a hair dryer near it!). I taped the mask with duct tape to an old pair of sunglasses with the lenses popped out. This way, she could wear it in front of her face, and if anyone said, "No masks allowed!"...

She could pop the sunglasses back on her head and be all, "Mask? What mask??"

Loophole.

"Crisis-Averted" as we like to say at La Casa de Camarillo...