Happy Halloween in Hohhot

A Spooky Halloween from Samuel and Grace--these are the kids' pumpkins, lit up and in the darkened hallway.

By the time most of you read this post, you will still have Halloween ahead of you. Here in Hohhot, trick-or-treating for 2007 is now a memory, chocolate and Skittles line little bellies, and both kids are crashed out. Halloween has been our first major stumbling block in the fight against homesickness and luckily, it's the first battle won in that fight, for the kids had a great day. They ran out at nine this morning to the meat and vegetable lady behind our building (as opposed to the tofu, fresh noodles, and vegetable lady, next door to the meat and veggie lady) and bought their pumpkins. After lessons, lunch, and playtime at the IMNU track, we carved the pumpkins, I baked cocoa fudge cookies (because of course, knowing all the sugar was coming, I had to add just a little bit more), and then we met with Carter and his parents and trick-or-treated all the foreign teachers. The kids got way too much candy--as is normal--and they have stashed it all away, to dip into now for many days to come. Here are photos to document the day:

This is actually the first time the kids haven't been totally grossed out by pumpkin innards. I still got to wield the knife. Mom's privilege.

It is hard to argue with gendered costume choices when your kids absolutely love their costumes. Samuel is a Chinese military policeman and Grace is dressed in traditional ceremonial Mongolian clothing. Dave and I long ago gave up trying to suppress Samuel's love of guns, swords, and all things martial. Ditto for Grace's love of "princess" paraphernalia.

Trick-or-treating with Abby, baby Caleb, Carter (in pumpkin costume), and Tad (aka Zorro).