All the Ritchies were Kung-Fu fighting…

If there's one blog entry I always seem to get down, it's our annual Halloween shenanigans.   We dig Halloween.  Probably mostly it's me, but I seem to have rubbed off on my family, in a Halloween way.  Woo-hoo!  And I know this post is a couple of weeks late and everyone now has turkey on their minds (well, not us, but that's another blog entry), but since *I* still have vinyl decal bats still stuck all over my front door and garage door that I can't get off, we're still feeling Halloween here at our house.

Every year we do a family theme in which to go to parties and to our church's Trunk or Treat (where you hand out candy from your cars in the church's parking lot - which, when I write it down like that sounds awfully lame, eh?).  Granted, we do a *leeeetle* more than most people do for Trunk or Treat, but it's actually a lot of fun.  Read on for proof...

Anyway, this year our family theme was up to Noah and he wanted a Ninja family! ROCK ON, little No! Excellent choice!  Our outfits weren't QUITE as ferociously Ninja as I'd envisioned, thinking that black clothes and Japanese-looking headbands would be quite enough.  But at least Mark and Connor had their karate gi (yes, gi, it's a karate thing that I had to learn because Connor and his Kyoshi became upset every time I referred to it as an outfit), so those two look a little more officially Ninja.  I think.  Well, except if you look closely, you'll see that Connor's headband is actually his Halloween necktie.

Talkin' the talk, walkin' the walk…(and please ignore the spaghetti stain on Mark's outfit, I mean gi)

We don't plan it this way on purpose, but we get Grandma (my mom) out to visit us regularly almost every October, so we dress her up, too (at least we didn't dress you up as the Emperor from Star Wars this time, Mom!)!  Here's Grandma Ninja with the ninja grandcherubs.  (blow this photo up by clicking on it and check out Shelby's face looking at Noah - she is so NOT impressed with his Ninja-ness)

Okay, back to the Trunk or Treat (remember, the weird church thing where the kiddies trick or treat out of cars).  As weird as Trunk or Treat may sound to some of you, I  LOVE Trunk or Treat and am our family's architect/producer/puppeteer. And fortunately, I have an awesome husband with NO shyness (no shame??) who is always recruited to be my entertainment, doing things *I* would NEVER do.  Ha ha! 

Here's our tricked-out Ritchie crew, blocking the view of our awesomely tricked-out car (is it tricked-out or tripped-out?  Do I sound completely ridiculous?):

We had "Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting" (of course, what else?) blaring from our speakers (over and over, apologies again to Jamie W sitting in the car next to ours, who will now forever hate that song), giving Mark a fabulous opportunity to show off his moves - VIDEO!!!  (click to play)  Who says university professors are boring old fuddy-duddies?  MINE is pretty awesome, eh?

Here's a better view of our decorated trunk, along with Mark fighting off another family's ferocious and very tenacious Ninja.  Mark had to defend his "Temple of Candy" against Joshua for pretty much the whole evening. It's a tough crew out Trunk or Treating, you know!

I know this next one is blurry, but this illustrates the perils of Trunk or Treating in late October in New York State - VERY COLD trick or treaters.  Look at my little shivering Ninja Noah!  And it was only after much whining that I finally let Shelby put on her coat - kids, we live in New York and we trick or treat so ya better toughen up!!!  Of course, the cold didn't seem to be stopping Connor from eating all of his collected candy right then and there... 

As much as I love Halloween and like to plan the stuff and the show and the decorations, I'm a little lazy with costumes and try to hobnob them together on the cheap.  However, NOBODY does costumes like my beloved Rich & Angie Bailey:

Need I say more?  These guys are my costume IDOLS.  Seriously, guys, those outfits deserve their own party (because wearing them only once in front of a limited audience is cheating the WORLD of your awesomeness).  I'm still figuring out how to plan a party for LDS folk (Mormons) and telling them the theme is PIMPIN'.  When I figure that out, we'll PAR-TAY, my friends!

Back on the homefront, on the actual 31st of October, we finally relax and chill.  Grandma and Shelby were the tag-team for answering our door this year.  Mark was taking the bigger Ninjas around the block gathering more candy (since the Trunk or Treat candy from 2 days prior was long gone).  As for me, I was relaxing and eating…..ummmm…….carrots!!   Yeah, carrots.  For sure.

Next year's 2012 Halloween theme is up to Shelby and as soon as the words "My Little Pony" and "Unicorns" were uttered from her mouth, Connor began screaming protests.  Sooooooo, stay tuned next year to see what happens there, 'cause THAT should be VERY interesting…