Happy Halloween!

Today has been such a busy, fun day with the kids! I've celebrated Halloween with the babies the last two years, but this year was definitely the best and we had enough costumes for all the babies and big girls. I say we celebrated, but really we just changed them into costumes for adorable pictures! 

Halloween is definitely not celebrated here like we do in the States. It's seen as Satanic by many Christians, and many people are very opposed to it... Just as an example, when telling one of the tías about Halloween and how it's become so commercialized in the States, she was telling me that she has a cousin who lives in the States and he told her that one time he celebrated it (with some sort of crazy cult it sounded like...) and they killed people during the celebration and that's why Halloween is so bad. I tried explaining to her that that is not how we typically celebrate and that's not how we planned on celebrating with the kids, but she was sure that was how it was celebrated! 

I don't know that it's necessarily become more common during my time here, but I've certainly heard more about Halloween (mostly why we shouldn't celebrate) and seen more stuff for sale this year than I have in years past. Sarah found some great, cheap costumes for sale in la Cancha which is where most of the kids' costumes came from. They looked too cute! I wish it was a normal thing to take kids trick-or-treating here as I know they would've loved it! My mom sent candy bracelets for them and I did make them say (in English) "trick-or-treat!" before giving them to them!

I'd say the kids thought it was a successful day too. On our walk back home from Horita Feliz, Saret asked me "Tía Hannah, when you come tomorrow, can we do that thing we did this morning with our princess dresses and other clothes again? That was fun!" 

Get ready for picture overload!

Halloween makes Aragatza ice cream for breakfast totally acceptable.

 In the most hilarious moment of the day... Yesterday Sarah let D. try on the chicken costume. It fit great and we were sure that would be his costume today. This morning, when getting the kids changed into their costumes, she said "D., bring me the chicken." Now, for a little more backstory, yesterday Tía Silvia brought 12 chicks to the hogar so they can be raised until they're big enough to be eaten. We can't ever say D. didn't follow directions as he absolutely did... He brought Sarah one of the actual, live chicks... I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard! He didn't find it quite as funny as we did!

 Tiburon y Hombre Araña... Shark and Spiderman

Tortuga Ninja... Ninja Turtle

 Tortita... Cupcake

 Princesa con su caballo blanco... Princess with her horse

 Osito... Little Bear

 Mariposa... Butterfly

Payasito... Clown

 Hombre Araña... Spiderman

 Marinero... Sailor

Princesa y Marinero... Princess and Sailor

 Pollito... Chicken

If you guessed that he's Pocahontas then you guessed correctly!

The girls LOVED getting to dress up!

 As horrible of a picture as it is, it was absolutely worth everything it took to get it!

Tigre... Tiger

  

A.M. couldn't decide whether to be a clown or a princess!

Two of our princesses

 Love my Rapunzel!

Batman y Tortuga Ninja... Batman and Ninja Turtle

Now time for the sibling pictures! A. (3 next month) and JdD (1 year 2 months)

 S. (5 years) and L. (2 years 10 months)

 B. (18 months) and S. (3 years)

 S. (10 next month) and B. (8 years)

 A. (1 year 10 months) and M. (8 months)

The "twins" and I

 Sarah and her hijo, el tigre

 Princess R. and I

 Mariquita... Ladybug

Monito... Little Monkey... The tías asked if we could leave the monkey costume for him "so he'll have something warm to sleep in at night!" Knowing them, he's already sleeping with plenty of layers and blankets over him!

My mom sent a cookie decorating kit so the big kids each got to decorate a piece of the cookie!

D. and his snack

 Sarah and I had both brought face paint with us that we didn't use on the babies... We took it over to the boys' house so they could get it on our fun too. B. requested "Batman."

 Optimus Prime

 Another Batman

When you have 9 kids to take to Horita Feliz, you just can't always be bothered with getting all of them changed... Sometimes one might slip out of the house still in her Halloween costume and you let her go like that...