Halloween was different this year, but we managed to celebrate while staying safe.  The holiday started off with the usual Larchmont window painting, masked this year.  We painted a window at D’Agostino Tailors since several of Blaine’s friends also signed up there.

On Wednesday 10/28 we carved the pumpkins!

On Friday, 10/30, the kids were allowed to wear costumes to school!  Costume masks were not allowed, and no facepaint, only cloth covid masks.

After school we walked over to the library to see their treat chutes.

Blaine received a coupon for a free small french fries at Manor Park Deli, so we headed there next.

On Saturday, 10/31, Blaine and Andrew made Halloween biscuits!  Blaine had the idea and asked Andrew to buy Halloween cookie cutters, so we had bat and pumpkin-shaped biscuits.

In the afternoon we walked around in costume.

We also got ready for the small Halloween gathering our wonderful neighbors were hosting.  We prepared a bunch of eggs with mini lights and glowsticks in them, and had an egg hunt with four families on our street who all have children of around the same age, seven kids in all.

We got the house all decorated in our usual Alfred Hitchcock inspired way (which even won second place in a local contest this year!).

And we put out a treat table for passers-by.

Then the kids got in their costumes!  Blaine was pleased with how this pic came out, looks like he is actually about to shoot some force lightning as Darth Sidious.

The whole group!

I took a moment to try to capture the evening’s blue moon (blue hunter’s moon to be exact).

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Some more pics from October!  Here is a pic of Sarah at her desk at school.

We finally cleared out the giant tomato plant from the front bed.

Our grass seed grew like crazy and now the lawn looks magnificent!

I finally got around to giving Sarah her first home haircut!  I watched a few youtube videos and then went for it — turned out pretty well!

One day at Sheldrake we came across this new “meditation garden” and the kids stopped on this bench to meditate.

Outdoor dining at Smokehouse in Mamaroneck.

Blaine in a new mask by Gram.

Sarah lost her other top front tooth!

Sarah’s grow panda from Aunt Jane.

On 10/27, Sarah lost another tooth!  This one was on the lower left.  She has now lost 5 teeth, with one more wiggly one on its way out.

Sarah opted for a smaller celebration than Blaine had requested.  Here she is celebrating at school on 10/8 (school was fully remote on the 9th).

For her party we invited two friends over to make glow-in-the-dark slime on the patio.  We got kits from a local slime place, DIY slime, and set up stations that were 6 feet apart.

Then we had individually wrapped cupcakes from the Snackery!  Yum.

On Sarah’s actual birthday, 10/10, she picked all the food!  Waffles for breakfast, more Walter’s hot dogs for lunch, and dinner was her current fave — barbecue chicken, cornbread, and kale chips.

She was very excited about this model of the solar system she received.

We also played this Star Wars board game Blaine got for his birthday.

When we asked Sarah how she wanted to spend her birthday, she rejected all the outdoor suggestions — no hike!  no playgrounds!  She really just wanted to open presents early and play with them all day.  And she wanted to have her face painted!  So, I did my best.

Then it was dinnertime, with homemade chocolate chocolate cake for dessert!

Happy birthday, Sarah!

On 10/11 we did a daytrip down to PA for some socially-distanced, mostly masked, outdoor time with the Mahoneys.  We finally got to meet Maeve, who was already 6 months old!  What a cutie.

And we kept our distance over takeout lunches on the patio.

It was too brief, but so good to see everyone.  Who knows when we will be able to gather again?

One last picture of the kids enjoying their new corn hole set from Mom-Mom!

When Blaine heard that the school would not be allowing the usual birthday celebrations in class with a special snack, he asked if he could invite his pod over after school for a s’more.  At first we thought it wasn’t possible to do anything during covid times, but after thinking about it a bit more we decided his idea might actually work.  So, we invited the pod of 13 kids to stop by after school on 10/7 to celebrate with Blaine.  We individually wrapped the s’mores ingredients in advance so there was no communal food, we asked that everyone wear masks except when eating, and we had plenty of sanitizer.  It went well!  We had 11 of the 13 kids stop by, I believe.

After the party Blaine and Sarah made origami yodas.

Blaine was disappointed that he had school on his actual birthday, 10/8.  We tried to make it special by letting him pick all the food.  So, we had pancakes for breakfast, Walter’s hot dogs for lunch, and dinner out at Larchmont Tavern.

Blaine’s other birthday wish was to help me cast my vote!  We carefully selected a Mister Rogers stamp for good luck, since Mr. Rogers seems like the opposite of our current president!

Then the kids helped me drop it in the nearest mailbox on the walk to dinner.

Back home we had presents and cake (chocolate chocolate ice cream cake from Longford’s, of course).  Happy birthday, Blaine!

On 10/2, we celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary!  When we told the kids about our wedding they were most interested in the cake, so we had to locate some pictures to show them.

Here we are, 10 years later!  We couldn’t celebrate in a big way thanks to coronavirus, but we marked the occasion with dinner out (and al fresco) at one of Larchmont’s fanciest restaurants, Vintage Kitchen.

The kids were along for the occasion, of course!  We haven’t had a sitter since March.

One day Blaine declared he would like to climb Mt Everest.  We suggested that he might start with something smaller, so we looked for the nearest mountain we could find and came up with Turkey Mountain (elevation 771′, elevation gained during the hike was only 469′ though), which I guess is actually a hill.  It was a nice view!

Also, the playground at Constitution Park in Larchmont finally opened!