Happy Halloween!!

Tonight was the first time in the 4 years that we have lived in our house that we have actually gone trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood. For the past 24 years I have always wandered through my mother's neighborhood in search of fun-sized sugary goodness, but since she moved 300 miles away this past June, we walked the streets of our neighborhood instead. And I was pleasantly surprised! In a neighborhood filled with uppity capitalist Republican "go start your own business and buy your own candy, you lazy 5 year old" people, my kids actually made out like bandits. Don't get me wrong, most of my neighbors are trick-or-treat Scrooges. But for those who actually don't mind the parade of costume clad juveniles lurking from cul-de-sac to cul-de-sac, it was awesome. Some houses handed out full sized candy bars, one had a setup of sodas to go with the candy! This house also had a cooler labeled "treats for grown ups" that I could only assume was full of beer. But hey, to each his own. See, some people are thinking "beer? At trick-or-treat? Do you live in a trailer park?" While others realize how much beer costs, and know that this is not the case if people in my neighborhood are just handing it out. Some would call them good Samaritans, they're just doing their part to help people take the edge off dealing with all of the sugared up tiny humans. The best house was actually showing a movie on the side of the house, and handing out candy, hot chocolate, cider (both hot and cold), chips, and hot dogs. They even threw in a million dollars... well, in play money, but still.

Aaron loved his first trick-or-treat experience, even though it was a short one. He's got the worst head cold right now, so I let him hit the 3 lit up houses on our block, and sent him back home with Tony. The older 3 kids and I went the rest of the way around the neighborhood, while the teenagers stayed home and passed out candy (trying to avoid waking up to a house covered in toilet paper tomorrow).

Costumes this year were a breeze. The boys begged me for costumes that they saw at WalMart. And I was all, "wait... these are like $7!" So, no argument from Mom. Aaron was a pumpkin, because for some reason in my family, the baby is always a pumpkin for the first trick-or-treat. It's not intentional, it just sort of always works out that way. Andie was a little more complicated. I was full on expecting to have some sort of preteen battle with her over some costume that was just to oversexed, but "everyone else is wearing it." But she came to me and wanted to be a zombie. Hmmm... I had to swish that one around a bit, because I wasn't sure if it was going to be sweet or bitter. On one hand, she would be full clothed. One the other hand, she didn't want to be something pretty... and well, have you seen my daughter? She's beautiful. I caved, because I know that I'm on the precipice of her teenage years, and I've got to start choosing my battles. So I watched a couple of tutorials, got some fake blood and liquid latex and was able to pull this off....

Yes, I know. I rock. You may applaud :)