All About Halloween

I know Halloween is one day ~ Oct 31. But in our house, we celebrate Halloween for most of the month of October. We absolutely love Halloween in our house ~ decorations, pumpkin carving, cartoon watching, Halloween crafting, etc.

Briana loves to dress up in Halloween outfits as well...

My mom gave Bri some Halloween treats a few days before Halloween...

We attended a wonderful Halloween party thrown by a local China adoption family the weekend before Halloween. I couldn't believe how many beautiful China children were there (we had to leave early to go to a soccer game, hence the soccer outfit Bri is wearing)...

We carved our pumpkins a few days before Halloween. Bri did hers all by herself...

Doug came up with this amazing witch pumpkin...

Mine was happy...

Bri's was a crying vampire...

And then Bri and Doug worked on this R2D2 together...

Bri was so proud of our creations...

The day before Halloween, Bri's class had "pumpkin day." They scooped out pumpkin seeds and used them to do math problems (her teacher sent out pictures)...

 Then Halloween came and it was a cloudy, foggy day. Doug added a few finishing touches to our house that day...

That evening, my parents came over for trick or treating as well as my sister and her family. The cousins walked together again this year.

She gave Briana this adorable pumpkin blanket...

I had my devil horns ready to go...

It was going to be a bit misty and chilly that evening, so we put layers under Bri's costume...

She (and the cousins) couldn't wait to get started...

We brought a wagon in case cousin N2 needed it (he didn't), but it also held umbrellas and drinks...

 Our favorite corner witch...

Trick or treating is the bomb!!!!

B likes to check out what get puts in her bucket...

A lot of people also take Halloween very seriously in my neighborhood...

 The zombie house was probably my favorite of the night though...

There were so many trick or treaters on one particular street, the kids had to wait in line to get candy...

It was so crowded, it reminded us of the busy streets in the Halloween scene from E.T...

 We finally got back to my house after trick or treating for about 90 minutes. We were pretty spooky if I do say so myself...

The kids immediately dumped out their candy and Bri dug into hers pretty quickly...

I would say Halloween was a big success this year! 

10 Years Ago Today (Adoption Dossier)

Ten years ago today, Doug's and my adoption dossier was logged into China (CCAA/the China adoption system). Our log-in date was 11/03/05. Everything in China adoption was done according to date. We watched our dossier slowly (and I mean slowly) go through the translation room, the review room and then finally, the matching room. 

We were told we would have a match for a child in 6-7 months. We waited 19 months. Those families that were logged in after us waited longer - years longer.

11/03/05 is a date that will be forever etched in my mind.

My Beautiful Ninja

Briana decided that she wanted to be a ninja (or ninjette as she calls it) for Halloween this year.

Look at all her costumes through the years...

 Like I usually do, I did a photo shoot with Bri before Halloween. It is so hard to get a really good picture when she is so excited about getting candy. So the weekend before Halloween, I got some really good pictures of my beautiful (and fierce!) ninja.

Enjoy!!!