Coins!

In honor of Viggo and Svea's love of coins, we thought that coins would make unexpected costumes this year.

Elin was a penny, Svea a Buffalo Nickel, and Viggo, a two-cent piece. Okay, so Elin looked more like a leopard/gnome/marshmallow penny, but . . . hey, it was cold out last night.

The two-cent piece was actually a real coin and it was minted in the 1860s here in the US. It was the first coin to be minted with the phrase "In God We Trust".

But nobody knew that. They just thought Viggo was a two-cent piece to "put his two cents in". In their defense, if I didn't live with a bunch of coin collectors, I wouldn't know that either. Just a little coin knowledge for the rest of us.

Drawing Abraham Lincoln went better than I thought.

What we did was: Nate cut out pieces of cardboard with the aid of a large compass to get the circle shapes perfect. Then I spray painted them with overpriced metallic spray paint, and then used an oil-paint Sharpie pen to draw all the details on.

Cutest coins on the block!

Svea was extremely proud of her Buffalo Nickel, which is amazing, considering drawing the buffalo was not what I would consider fun. She makes a goofy face and does some extreme poses for pretty much every photo now, so . . . no, she doesn't always look like this in real life.

While trick-or-treating, Nate told me that Elin would occasionally say to the neighbor handing out candy, "I penny!" She was a real trooper and had lots of fun. But when she came home, she had to take care of business and suck her thumb and snuggle with her blanket.

They each came home with approximately a gallon of candy. Yay.