Halloween was a very big deal at our house this year. First, we went to our neighborhood’s version of a pumpkin patch, which is more a pumpkin pile, a huge hill of pumpkins at Monterey Market. The kids (and brave adults) scramble all over the pumpkins, including some that must weigh 100 pounders (pumpkins, not people, well, people too, but that’s nothing extraordinary).

Someone should have taken a picture of the maneuvers I had to make in order to get myself, Emry and my camera onto the pumpkin pile, not to mention position the boys and get the shot, while balancing in my clogs on pumpkins. They’re not so stable, pumpkins. Kinda round and slippery.

But it was worth it.

Then, on Halloween, we had a robot.

Elan came up with the idea. This is the second year that I’ve been surprised by how definite he’s been about his costume. Execution was carried out by Mikhail, on box duty, and Grandma, on decoration duty. My job was to admire the results.

We also had a monkey who, true to form, managed to get through this banana peel and cover himself with banana goop despite the fact that he has exactly zero teeth.

I was dressed up as a harried mother of two. I threw that costume together in about 4 seconds flat. That’s how good I am.

And this picture proves that I suffer from lack of imagination when it comes to Halloween costumes:

Or maybe I just like tradition.

It was Elan’s first time doing official trick or treating, since last year, our Halloween block party fell on Oct 31, and Elan was so worn out after 8 hours in the jumpy house that he was asleep before the trick or treaters were out. This year, trick or treating was a huge hit. The monkey hung out in the Ergo and sampled his first 3 Musketeers bar.

My husband got into the spirit. Someone had to help Elan get up and down stairs without falling. Boxes don’t have the best visibility, we learned.

Eventually he would just take his head off between houses. Which led to funny lines like:

“Dada, you have to put my head back on!”