A Halloween extravaganza, featuring three costume changes, volleyball, and severed limbs

Halloween is not celebrated by Chinese people, but I am pretty sure that we couldn't have had this much Halloween fun anywhere else in the world! Milan was prepped by the library story time the week before Halloween, when the librarian read a story about little witches going trick-or-treating. We read that book 2 or 3 times a day for the next week, talking about trick-or-treating and what this whole Halloween thing is all about. Milan wanted to be a zookeeper, which was a great idea because it didn't require any special costume construction or purchase! I wanted to join in the festivities, so I thought I would be an animal in his zoo. Since I was too lazy to make a lion's mane, I went with tiger.

Our first costume opportunity was Wednesday, when A had the most amazing toddler Halloween party at her house for our weekly playgroup. When I started to do my tiger make-up Milan got so excited that we did his face too, so he was a tiger disguised as zookeeper.

At the playgroup party, there were more Halloween stories, crafts, pin-the-spider-on-the-web, musical pumpkins, and snacks.

There were six kids there, and Milan was one of only two who were dressed up, but he had a blast.

Next came the Halloween parade at the school Friday afternoon. Again we went as the two tigers, trying to infiltrate the zookeeper staff to get more food (candy) for our fellow tigers. Tim rushed home from the volleyball tournament (more on that later) to jump into his clown costume and participate in the parade too.

They had a little trick-or-treating set up in the school and Milan ate one small packet of gummie bears and three lollipops simultaneously. The sugar high that followed was enough to make me swear off trick-or-treating for good.

Lollipop number 1

That evening we carved pumpkins and ate pumpkins.

We put the pumpkins out on our back window ledge to the delight of our American neighbors and the complete confusion of our Chinese neighbors. Granted, I texted a few friends to make sure they went to look at our pumpkins, because otherwise they would never see them on the backside of one building in a huge apartment complex. Dinner, by the way, was an Afghan pumpkin dish with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, and naan-like flat bread.Yuuuuummmmmyy.

On Saturday we went to the last day of the regional international school volleyball tournament.

Our Girls team, in yellow, won two games!

Coach D with the Boy's team

There were teams there from Beijing and Mongolia, among others. It was a good time and Milan enjoyed seeing a real game. Last week he asked me about all different kinds of ball games and even made up his own game with his own rules. Please, Sports Godmother, help me out here! I'm doing the best I can!

That night it was more Halloween fun, with a student/parent party in town. Milan decided he wanted to be a clown like Daddy, which made Tim's little red nose glow with pride.

Have you ever seen such a cute pair of clowns?

I didn't see the point of being a tiger anymore, so I became weird spider-face lady for the evening.

Freak Family shot

Milan was obsessed with the many giggling, screaming, flashing Halloween props and decorations provided by our hosts. Luckily, he didn't see the scary side in any of these things, and walked around with a severed arm like it was his favorite teddy bear.

What can I say about this shot, except that I know this will come back to haunt me someday, somehow.

Happy Halloween, everyone!