Since it is Halloween, I decided to let the kids start the day of right…with a Halloween treat! After they finished their eggs, banana, and yogurt for breakfast, I let them each have a special Halloween chocolate Frankenstein sucker. Needless to say, they decided this was going to be a very good day with treats like this!
For the children’s Halloween party at Camp Eagle, the kids dressed up as Raggedy Ann and Andy. I wasn’t sure these costumes would even make it here in time. I ordered them 3 weeks ago! But at the eleventh hour they arrived yesterday afternoon. Hooray! So, here are Ann and Andy all dressed up and ready to go to their party.
Ella and her Raggedy Ann doll.
Sterling had an Andy doll, but good luck getting this boy to carry it. He would have nothing to do with Andy aside from throwing it across the room. Sigh, such a boy.
Okay, my kid has become a nose picker. Gross. I’m trying not to make a big deal out of it in an attempt to casually discourage him from picking, but for the past 2 weeks, the boy has had his finger in his nose at all times. I think it’s just the fascination with sticking something in his orifices, but really, couldn’t we try the ear instead?
We joined Evie and her mommy for trick or treating at the offices and hangars on base. Isn’t that the cutest lil lion you ever saw? She even said “grrrr” on command! Certainly not a cowardly lion!
Sterling loved Eve’s costume, too. He wanted to pet her mane!
With her pumpkin heavy with candy, Ella was struggling to carry it, but no way would she let anyone else help her! Oh no! At one point Sarah tried to help Ella up the stairs by holding her pumpkin…she collapsed on the floor with the loudest scream EVER! After that we all knew better than to even think about touching that girl’s pumpkin.
Those are no costumed GI Joes, those are the real deal. It was so kind of our troops to hand out candy to all the children stationed here. After collecting some candy, Ella sat down to have a chat with the soldiers and thank them for their loyal service to our country.
The only semi decent picture we got of all 3 spooks together…and they’re still trying to get more candy!
After we finished all our tricking and treating we headed over to the gymnasium for a children’s Halloween party. Our little friend Emily’s mom was in charge of coordinating the party, and I must applaud her. She did so good! She really pulled off a wonderful event for these kids. When we first arrived there was a table set up with all sorts of snacks for the little ones…juice, nilla wafers, crackers, apples, juice boxes. It was a great refreshment after walking around base to collect candy.
Just wanted to show off some of the adorable goblins at the party. Clockwise: Emma (3 yr.) was Tinkerbell, her little brother Mason (6 mo.) was Captain Hook, Audrey (18 mo.) was the cutest little lamb I think I've ever seen, and Philomena (23 mo.) was a beautiful little fairy in a sweet little dress her great grandmother made her.
There were lots of games set up for the kids. Of course, since the majority of the children stationed here are toddlers, the rules weren’t exactly followed. Ella had fun taking a swing at the golf ball on the miniature golf set up.
None of these toddlers caught on that you were supposed to throw the beanbags towards the holes. Instead it was a scramble to stuff as many bean bags as possible into the holes. It was a group effort, but I believe after 30 min. of stuffing the holes, all these kids felt satisfied that their work was complete.
This was probably my very favorite game of all for the children! Fishing for prizes! I always loved this game at bazaars when I was a child, because it always reminded me of Pollyanna and the doll she wins in a fishing booth.
An arts and crafts table was set up to make hand bats. This is Ella’s bat. They traced the kid’s hands, and then cut them out, added the “body”, some wiggly eyes and a furry nose, and voila, you have a bat.
Ella, ever the little mommy, supervises Mason’s caregiver.
Keeping up with 2 toddlers is sometimes very hard work. Especially when they’re running in opposite directions. While I was prying Ella away from the CD player being used for musical chairs (she thought she’d like to DJ), Sterling slipped out of my sight. I started looking for him…and couldn’t find him anywhere! I was fairly baffled as the party was being held in an empty gym, so there simply weren’t that many places to hide. Luckily, Lyndsay spotted him for me…at the face-painting booth. He had wondered over and taken his place on the lap of the lady doing the painting. Luckily, she’s a mommy to 2 small children, and thought better of painting his face (thank you!), but he was beyond excited to have his hands painted!
That’s one happy little lion, having found a balloon to play with!
After the party on base we returned home for trick or treating in our neighborhood. Of course Halloween isn’t celebrated in Korea, but we had several Korean children from the neighborhood who were beyond excited to celebrate their first Halloween, so all the American neighbors agreed to pass out candy. When we arrived home Daddy had the house looking very spooky with cobwebs, spiders, skeletons, haunting music, pumpkins, and flashing lights. He even had haunted scenes being projected onto an empty house across the street from ours! So, time for the next costume change before making the rounds in our neighborhood. Two little monkeys…Monkey see, monkey do. And of course, they were more fun than a barrel of monkeys!
Can you tell that both "see" and "do" were winding down at this point?
This was a cold Halloween! No matter, it was still fun to bring Halloween fun to Korea!
Encountering some trick or treaters along the way.
I think to understand how exciting this Halloween was for Michael, I must give you a little history. The first year we lived in Florence (I guess that was 4 Halloweens ago), Michael decorated the house, filled the candy bowl, then dressed up like a scare a crow and sat outside waiting for the first child to arrive. He waited, and he waited, and he waited some more. Two hours later he finally gave up and accepted that there would be no goblins coming to our house. Fast forward to last Halloween, baby’s first Halloween, and again, he had to miss the special night…he was on the other side of the world! He was devestated. So this year, he finally has his 2 little monsters with him, and is getting the chance to “do it up right”. He was soooo excited to have all sorts of little children coming to our house to trick or treat, and they were equally excited to get the full Halloween experience here in Korea!
We had some scary (and one beautiful princess) trick or treaters visit us tonight. Aren’t you so proud of these little kids for getting so into the spirit of a holiday they’ve never experienced before? Now I can’t wait for Christmas (hands down the best holiday all year!).
I spy some creative jack-o-lanterns! I'm so proud of the one on the top left. It belongs to Luther (Heather's older brother), who carried it through the whole neighborhood while he did his trick or treating.
After a very long and exciting albeit exhausting day, it was time for jammies and night-night for the babies. Before bed (at 6:30pm!!!) Ella found a new way to play with the baby doll’s stroller…taking a ride herself.
Our neighbors, the Marshals, got equally excited about this Halloween in Korea, and erected a giant blow up pumpkin on their lawn! What a site that was for folks who have never celebrated Halloween before! Just wait until Christmas when we bring out Michael’s lawn decorations!
Next order of business for this Halloween celebration? S’mores, of course! What would a fall celebration be without a fire and gooey marshmallows? Our Korean guests had never before had s’mores, so this was an exciting and yummy first for them. Unfortunately, I think our guests learned the down side of eating too many s’mores...an awful belly ache!
Mrs. Yu’s brother, brother in law, niece and daughter all made it to our Halloween party. Her brother (Mr. Yu) and his daughter Sang Heon both drove back to Wonju from Chungju just for our party!
Look, even the President of the United States made it to our Halloween party!
I guess it doesn’t matter where in the world you are; they pretty much all look the same, huh? I think all these girls had a good time this evening. They were all so excited to go trick or treating, something they had learned about in their English classes.
I made a carrot cake for dessert (like we needed more sweets!). I think the carrot cake went over surprising well with our guests. I suppose I shouldn’t have been so surprised, after all this is a country that eats sweet potato cakes.
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