the Halloween adventures of Captain Will and his pirate posse

We had a great Halloween, highlighted by a couple fun parties. Last year Will was just barely old enough to understand that there was some reason to be dressing up in costumes, and there was candy. This year, he was very excited to be dressed up (plus he got to hold a "thord" and take it to school) and he was a very active participant in trick-or-treating. Above is a very nice picture at the beginning of the day. Will was, of course, a pirate, Erin dressed as some kind of cat for the morning, and Hallie was a chili pepper. Hallie, like her mother, had several outfits that needed to be worn at some point during the day, so you'll see multiple costume changes in this post.

First stop: Will and Hallie's school for their Halloween party!

The kids got to do a bunch of special activities, like decorate pumpkins and cookies (and eat the cookies).

Here Will's playing "pin the ...mouth?... on the pumpkin"

Then when the parents came to pick everyone up at the end of the day, they had a costume parade!

Here Hallie's showing off costume #2: the classic infant pumpkin outfit.

Here Will's posing with the pumpkin he decorated at school, and two pirate pumpkins we made together. We had to make sure they were all set to impress our trick-or-treaters.

This year some of our neighbors hosted a neighborhood Halloween party. Lots of kids about Will's age and their families congregated at a house with a pirate fort in the backyard, perfect for Cap'n Will! There was even some pirate booty that Will found and got to take home.

Here Will's posing with his best pirate matey.

We had a whole pirate posse at the party. On the left, Erin was a pirate wench, and Hallie dressed as a pirate parrot (ok, so she it was a chicken costume, but she looked so cute nobody minded if we called her our parrot).

Then the kids went out trick-or-treating, followed by the crowd of parents. Will did a great job - he made it all the way around the block, said "thank you" at every house, and was very excited to get so much candy (sadly, most of the candy he got had milk chocolate or nuts in them so they became dad's candy).

After about a half hour, Will had been walking long enough and had to go potty so we thanked and said goodbye to our friends and went home to prepare for our own trick-or-treaters. Just like his mama, Will really enjoyed offering the bowl of candy to the trick-or-treaters, and was very excited whenever someone new came to the door.

Erin always keeps track, and we had a pretty good year for trick-or-treaters - nearly 70 kids came to our door. Good thing Will got so much candy for dad because there was very little left over from our home stash!