Trick-Or-Treat!

Happy Halloween! We did not bring Halloween costumes with us, because we figured that Austrians did not celebrate the holiday. However, someone at Chris’ school said that some people around here do trick-or-treat, so Chris purchased the kids some costumes when he was in Florida last week. Elora has an awesome pirate princess dress that she wore all day today (complete with sword that she carries around the house and tells Ollie, “No, no, you don’t play with that!” and pirate tattoos which are on her arms and skull and cross-bones tights, which Elora says,”These are tights. We wear these to church!” I am not sure we will actually wear those to church though…). Ollie got to be a monkey – Chris said the costume looked warm. And when he purses his lips together he really does look like a monkey. Tonight while we were out, many people giggled when they saw Oliver. More on that later.
Here are the kids with mom inside our apartment. While we did see some kids out in costumes, no one seems to do real trick-or-treating here. I think they just go to friends’ houses, and since none of our friends live close by, that really isn’t an option. Instead we dressed the kids up and let them wear their costumes for a night out, and then came home to trick-or-treat in our apartment.

Ollie seemed to like Halloween because lots of people smiled at him, and Elora told him what a cute monkey he was. He was all smiles and giggles, even though he really didn’t do much trick-or-treating… instead he got to sit on our bed playing with Elora’s duck and teddy (two toys that are NEVER shared with him).

Chris loves Elora’s awesome sword which was only $3 at Walmart. Alas, Chris did not have such a neat sword when he was a kid. Elora loves it, and tells me all about how it is sharp and can poke people. Luckily she understands that this means she can not play with the sword near Ollie. She just drags it around the house.
For trick-or-treating, I took the candy (provided by the missionaries, they like to bring us treats – very nice, because most candy here is really pricey and much nicer than the typical Halloween treats), and then I went in different rooms of the house and closed the door, so that Elora could knock and say, “trick-or-treat!”. It is cute how kids are always wondering, why am I doing this? for the first couple doors, and then they realize they are getting candy and start getting really excited about it.

Here is the cute picture I took just after opening the door to welcome my little trick-or-treater!

After she got the pez dispenser, she decided she was all done with trick-or-treating and sat down to eat her loot. She especially liked the “little chocolates” (m&m’s). Strange how all children like to dump their candy out on the floor and then eat it. The extra dirt must make it taste better. Note how tightly she is gripping her green m&m! She loves chocolate.

At first she was picking up her m&m’s one at a time, but by the end she was just shoveling them into her mouth. And then proving the sugar high theory false, once she was done with her candy, she laid in her bed and went to sleep… too much excitement!

When I asked Elora what she wants to do tomorrow, she said, “I could go treat-or-tricking?” to which I responded, “Usually we only do that on Halloween, but maybe if you go right to sleep we could go again tomorrow.” Who could resist such a cute little pirate princess?

Check out our picture gallery for more pictures of our European adventures as well as hiking trips in Utah and family photos.