Last Halloween, I introduced my Dutch colleagues to Reece's pumpkins (my favorite) and candy corn (DBudz's favorite). They thought the pumpkins were great, but were skeptical of the candy corn, "Sooo, are we eating candle wax? Is this a thing Americans do?"
Halloween is slowly gaining momentum here, and by the time Pip is 4 or 5, I'm sure she'll get to enjoy it as much as American kids do.
To get in the spirit, we attempted decorating a pumpkin, but cornstarch-based paint doesn't actually stick to pumpkins AND Pip doesn't really enjoy painting as much as she likes eating paint and eating the stem of the pumpkin.
Since it was my first time dressing up my own baby, you would think I would have gone all out with a fancy homemade costume. Turns out - I'm not that kind of mom (at least not this year), BUT, we did wind up with 3 different costumes.
The Amsterdam Mamas (the expat moms group in Amsterdam) hosted a Halloween parade on Sunday, so we went with some friends. It was the first really cold day, so we had forego our original costume plan and bundle Pip up. I had a last minute spark of inspiration...
Bear suit + Tutu = A Dancing Bear!
Most of the activities were for bigger kids, but she had a ton of fun sitting in the bouncy castle while the other kids bounced around her and she is always happy to crawl around on a new playground.
When we got home where it was warm, she wore her other costume.
I bought this in a moment of online shopping weakness back in the spring from one of those horrible, unreliable Chinese companies. The tag is sewn on the outside, but you get what you pay for. Our growling baby dino in her true form.
And of course, she had to wear a costume on Halloween!
We had lunch plans to show off this silly skeleton (thanks Kelsey K!) but her overproduction of boogers canceled that. We decided to try out decorating the pumpkin with stickers as a "pincher-grasp practice" activity, and had some success.
Happy Halloween friends!!
