Back in time, part 3: Halloween

This year, Mike's mother (aka Mimi) joined us for Halloween. She bravely endured parades and parties at two schools, an orgy of pumpkin-carving and a day trip to Hersheypark in the Dark. We taught her that the best person to hang out with at Hershey is Lauren, who will give any free chocolate that comes her way to the nearest family member. Crazy kid still claims she doesn't like chocolate. I shouldn't complain, since it means more for me, but I feel that I have failed to instill in her one of life's great coping skills.

Mimi enjoyed taking pictures of the fall foliage, which looks a bit different from the October scenery in Texas. Fortunately, she carries a nice camera with her. Ours went on the fritz shortly before she arrived. For those who are keeping score at home, it was our second camera casualty of the year. Camera #1 disappeared from Mike's pocket during an April trip to Hershey. Camera #3 is holding up so far.

I spent an afternoon carving Phineas, Ferb, and Agent P into our pumpkins.

Leah was quite excited about her Hello Kitty costume. She was Mickey Mouse for three years running before I made her pick something else last year (baseball player). We'll see if she tries to bring this one back in 2011.

Maddie and Lauren were Woody and Jessie, to the delight of a preschooler down the street and her toddler brother. The little boy was determined to follow Maddie all over the neighborhood. Maddie was initially a bit wigged out by having a groupie, particularly one that called her Wee-Wee (Woody was a little beyond his skill level at the time). Then she realized having a fan club was actually pretty cool. It gave us another way to yank her chain, too -- if we need to take a little of the wind out of her sails, we pull out the Wee-Wee moniker.

And finally, we got some great pix of my nephew from my sister in Germany. He is his mother's son:

This is the child of the sister who gave each of her bridesmaids a Hot Diggity Dogger, which is now Leah's favorite kitchen appliance. As far as she's concerned, if a hot dog is not cooked at Five Guys, it needs to be prepared in the Dogger.