Happy Halloween (conveniently brought to you one day late to maximize on pictures and minimize on useless blog posts)

Wanna know how we celebrated Halloween in Botswana? We didn't. So, because I missed out on last year's Halloween we decided to do it up this year - but in true "do it up fashion" we only decided to "do it up" at the last minute. This, what shall we call it, complete lack of planning - required maximum focus (for about 5 minutes) to scramble around and get costumes for everything...
We got a last minute costume for the pumpkin: I'd like to think that this new gig of putting Mr. Potato Head stuff on pumpkins is in no way an indication of laziness, but a conscientious decision not to add to the violence that surrounds us every single day(how much pumpkin carnage can one kid see in a lifetime?)...And, really, if anyone can pull of a political agenda, it's a pumpkin. Next year my pumpkin/potato head will likely hold signs about "making love not war" - or, "No one can take away a pumpkin's right to choose...Let HER decide whether or not to raise little squash" - but that one's pretty long so maybe I'll have to save that message for an Easter peep display. Moving on.
Megan's house got a costume:
We call it "grown up frat house" - the beer is still a requirement but instead of torn up sofas we adorn with rocking chairs and we subtract the obligatory wandering drunk guy throwing up in the bushes and replace with a neurotic Siberian Husky who decided to "dress up" as a guard dog and bark at anything that remotely looked at him...awesome effect for the terrified batman who stumbled upon us innocently desiring a freaking snickers bar.
Analise dressed up like an Octopus and scored a TON of candy...
Unfortunately, all of the candy in her bucket came from the big bucket that I was holding... trying to hand out to kids. Ana kind of seemed to think that the process of giving other kids candy was just plain stupid and figured out that if she just took it all I would 1) be able to give her all of my attention because I would have effectively lost my job and 2) her bucket would be full, thus fulfilling her Halloween mission to "fill her bucket".
Of course, best dressed went to little Emery.
He was dressed up as a "pitiful one month old", dressed in orange, freezing in the cold, begging his mother to put him to the boob and knock it off with the Octopus. His little lip quiver totally pulled of the whole costume. His prize? A bath and luxurious lotion-down with the ambiance music of his Octopus sister in a bath crying about the fact that she no longer had a lolly pop in her hot little tentacles - Man, I sure love Halloween!