During October, the nieces, Abbie and Kate, celebrated their 3rd and 2nd birthdays respectively. Sarah1 and Matt decided to throw them a joint party on Halloween, and invited all the girl’s friends to come over in costume for some cupcake-in-a-cone decorating and a hayride.  It was a total blast, and I took some pictures of the event.

Party favors hanging out with the cupcakes pre-party.

Abbie and her red-headed friend Brookie munch down on some freshly frosted and sprinkled cupcakes.  I especially like that Abbie is tackling the far side of her cone in this picture, and that Brookie is about to curl her fist into a cartoonish “THIS IS THE ULTIMATE POWER” victory pose.  They were very excited about the frosting and the sprinkles and the freedom to devour as much of them as humanly possible.

Showing off their hard work for the camera.

These boys, as you can probably tell, are pirates.  I tried for the first, oh, 3 hours of the party to get them to give me a pirate-y pose.  I couldn’t get them to so much as growl at me, though.  Nary a hook was raised in my general direction despite much begging.  Finally I realized that their costumes were way more sophisticated than I’d originally understood.  They weren’t just any old pirates.  More specifically, they were The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.  You see? That makes a lot more sense.  Looks like a pirate, smells like a pirate, but doesn’t act like a pirate?  That’s a Pirate Who Doesn’t Do Anything.  Can I get an Amen from the Veggie Tales crowd?

Really, though, the problem was that they had no clue who I was or why I kept asking them to thwack me with a sword or order me to walk the plank.  They just thought I was real weird.  Right at the end of the party, their mom, this lovely lady with the awesome feather-lashes, came’round and asked me to take a picture of them together.  They smiled for her, no problem.

And finally, before I head off to bed for the evening, here’s a picture of Abbie and Brookie’s feet as they stood at the table decorating the cupcakes, and also the floor, with many, many layers of sprinkles.

If you want to see more pictures, there’s some posted on my flickr account, and if you want to see The Most Pictures, I posted all of the shots from the party on my facebook.