Happy Halloween!

Being the party animal that I am, I took it upon myself to orchestrate quite a intricate celebration to ring in the holiday.  Actually, I just invited some close friends over to eat Skyline Chili with us and we all went trick-or-treating afterward.  Buuuttttt....it was quite festive and totally worth the five minutes it took me to throw it all together.  Thanks Lowden's & McKasson's for ringing in the Pumpkin Appreciation Day with us!!

Addison spent the day of the party asking me non-stop when/if it was time to celebrate yet.  Yes, as in every 30 minutes.  She loves her some action and parties and festivities and friends.  Totally my child.  After about the billionth time she asked I was finally able to say "Yes!  It's party time!"

We waited for our friends to arrive before we took our traditional (two years and counting folks) walk down to our neighborhood Sonic for free hotdogs and sodas.  I love the small town feel in the air around here and especially on Halloween.  There were TONS of people there by the time we made it but luckily those minimum wage Sonic workers totally know how to streamline and be efficient.  They need to hire them to work the voting polls/booths (post to come).  Anyway, we stocked up on our free dinner for the kids and walked back to the house to dine with everyone else.  It was crazy and chaotic and exciting to have kids everywhere, hot dogs flying through the air, everyone chatting and eating, and babies all crawling around the chaos.  We love our friends and love that we all get along just perfectly.  

After we shoved some food down our face we drew straws to see who would sit behind with the big bowl of candy while the rest of us flanked the neighborhood.  Then we came to our senses and just left the bowl of candy on the doorstep so we could all enjoy watching (chasing) the kids from house to house.  I'm sure we made some greedy teenager VERY happy.  Needless to say, it was crazy chaos.  There were TONS of people/kids/dogs/cars everywhere we went.  We finally managed to separate ourselves from the kid who was hacking up a lung while the parent was chain smoking, and went down a quiet street.  Ahhhh...finally by ourselves so we could actually enjoy the holiday instead of join the rat race to the next door.  

We walked quite a bit that night.  Addison was loving every minute of it.  Especially the part where she got to knock on doors with her friends Bentley and Cooper.  Daddy did a great job of helping her get from door-to-door while I stayed behind with Jonas and his friend Camry and her Mommy.  At one door, there was a fog machine and a graveyard in his front yard, and he was dressed as a grim reaper standing behind the fog.  After about five minutes of Daddy trying to convince Addison to knock on the door, the poor man finally came out of the fog and told Addison "Don't worry!  I won't scare you I promise!"  She finally took Daddy with her and got her candy.  Then at another door she told Daddy:  "Daddy, I kinda nervous to go to dis door.  Can you go with me?"  Otherwise, she knocked on most every door by herself. 

We spent the month leading up to Halloween talking about it.  We talked about how we ring the doorbell, say "Trick-or-Treat" super loud (she is usually very quiet around people) and then we say "Thank You!" super loud so they can hear it.  We practiced and practiced...mostly at her request.  But when it was showtime she had no fear and she was always good about talking loud and especially about saying "Thanks You!!"  I even noticed one of the doors, the person handing out the candy was quite appreciative and stopped what he was doing just to say "You're welcome!"  Apparently, he hadn't heard too many thank-you's that evening.  I'm so glad she knows how to be polite and grateful and appreciative.  

The kiddos were super tired by the end of the evening and finally decided they had had enough candy.  It was a fun night and we were all ready for bed.  After we taxed Addison on her candy of course.  We have to check it for safety reasons ya know!

Happy Halloween!!

It took some coercing but Addison finally learned to appreciate the gooey-ness of the pumpkin guts.

Jonas didn't quite know what to think.  And he's even our messy guy!  It probably doesn't help that his whole arm is engulfed in the pumpkin.

A photo op with our finished masterpieces.

The one on the right is Daddy's and because of this, has been illuminated with a very large 100 hour food storage candle.  We were lucky to not burn the house down that night folks.

Daddy with our little trick-or-treaters.  A scary but cuddly and cute Bear and a beautiful Rapunzel.

The gang before we set off for candy.  Do you know how hard it is to get this many kids to hold still BEFORE they are allowed candy on every doorstep?  It was not a small feat that's for sure.