A robot and a princess

We had a great Halloween yesterday!  It happened to fall on a school day for us, so we started the day with pictures outside on the playground before school.  Arden was Belle from Beauty and the Beast (costume courtesy of our awesome neighbors and their awesome hand-me-downs).  Huston was a robot.  He wore gray thermal underwear and a "circuit board" that we made out of cardboard, duct tape, some components from a smashed cell phone and video game, and a few light sticks.  Lots of people guessed he was a computer, which I didn't think of until after they mentioned it, but I guess he kind of did.  The only thing I cared about was that he was happy and excited about his costume.  He made sure to tell me several times that he didn't want anything on his head, and I was happy to comply. I probably could have made him look more robot-like, but I wanted him to like it. 

Are these the most fake smiles you've ever seen?  Not to mention, Arden's skirt is hiked up awkwardly in the front.

My little princess:

Me and the kiddos before school in my classroom:

My class (and Arden's class) trick or treating in the hallway at school:

Arden was enamored with the little portrait of Belle on her dress.  She kept showing it to me and here she is showing it to one of her little friends.  She kept saying, "Look!  It's a picture of me when I was wearing this dress!"

Huston's class had a sweet little party that I popped into for awhile while my class was taking a nap.  That's one of his teachers, Mrs. Baxley, dressed as the Queen of Hearts while they were waiting for their party to start.

My happy robot:

After school, we went by the hospital to visit Clarke's granny who has been there for the last few days. I think seeing the kids in their costumes brightened her day, and they sure had fun visiting her, too.  Then I took them to Chick Fil A for free kids meals and we came home for a bit before trick or treating.  I wanted to get better pictures of them in their costumes, but I waited until it was too dark, so this is all I could manage:

The kids were ecstatic to go trick or treating.  Huston was shouting the most enthusiastic "Trick or Treats!" you ever heard, and they were positively gleeful every time they got candy in their buckets.  Huston said, "This is the best trick or treating!" and Arden said, "I can't wait to taste these!"

Although their little feet were trip-trapping right along at first, we walked kind of a long ways so Huston could go by his teacher's house (Mrs. Baxley, from the picture above, who happens to live in our neighborhood).  It turned out to be a pretty long walk, though, and by the end they were dragging and asking for water.  We ended up carrying them back home (which, come to think of it, must be why my back hurts today!).  They ate an obligatory piece of candy (or two) and happily went to bed.

I was telling Clarke that even though going out trick or treating isn't something I really relish doing, it was so fun to see how happy and excited they were about it, and it made it totally worth it.