Happy Halloween

Getting ready for "Trunk or Treat" at church. The boys weren't too sure about it. There weren't any doorbells to ring and we weren't in our neighborhood. But they quickly learned that sometimes change is a good thing!

Hannah is the last little lion.

Jonathan at 20 months in 2009. And Ben and Cate wore this costume also. Sadly, I can't find a photo of them as little lions to post here.

 

Hannah checking out all of her loot.

The Whites, our awesome neighbors, gave the kids super treats and the kids all came home and dumped their bags to check out their loot.

Andrew scored a cool game-controller calculator!

Halloween was nice and warm - in the 60s, perfect weather for trick or treating. This year, since Halloween was on a Wednesday, our church had a Trunk-or-Treat event. We had never participated in this, but it was great. A bunch of familiar faces and friends giving candy to your kids in the church parking lot. Fast and efficient!

The boys have been looking forward to this night since October began and it didn't take Hannah long to figure out the trick-or-treating game. It went something like this: Walk up to strangers, smile shyly and they give me my CHOICE of candy!

Happy Halloween!

Bootiful!

Jonathan was Thomas the train

Andrew was a viking

Hannah was moolicious!

We had a little trouble capturing a group photo with them all in costume...

Getting ready to start the trick-or-treating fun.

Jonathan didn't really remember trick-or-treating from last year. But after the 3rd house, he said to me, "This is great! Let's go to more houses!"

Happy Halloween!

A monkey and a Boston Red Sox player

Even Hannah went for a little trick-or-treating fun.

Last year, the boys weren't too sure about trick-or-treating, but they completely understood the concept this year!

Pumpkin Carving

Friday afternoon, when Hannah and I looked like this...

The boys went out and bought pumpkins to carve. They were very excited to use the new pumpkin carving kit that Auntie and Uncle Dave sent them.

Cleaning out the yucky stuff

Taking turns tracing the pattern onto the pumpkin

Ta-Da!

Andrew checking on the little candle inside the pumpkin.

Jonathan needed to check too!

They carved a cat on Saturday. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it. And the best part of the pumpkin carving...Pumpkin Seeds! Keith carefully saved them all and roasted some yummy pumpkin seeds for us. Andrew, of course, won't try them, but the rest of us are enjoying them!

Happy Halloween!

Not quite sure about this costume business...

Well, maybe it'll be OK.

"What are we doing? Don't you know it's dark out here?"

Our lion was slightly distracted watching all the other trick-or-treaters.

"I think I like this trick-or-treat game!"

New England sports enthusiast and a little lion

"Check out my new car from Mrs. Penny!"

Watching and waiting for more trick-or-treaters

Still waiting...

We were actually able to go trick-or-treating in costumes last night! We didn't think it would happen. We've been trying to find a costume Andrew would agree to wear for weeks and everything we suggested was shot down. He finally offered an idea on Wednesday, stating that he would be a peg - like a clothespin. His parents were not creative enough to create a peg outfit in 3 days. We tried many other ideas: a weatherman, a chef, a lion, a frog, a doctor, a fireman, etc. But he didn't like any of the costumes we found. So we sort of gave up.

But Jonathan had this cute lion costume that Ben wore a few years ago, and I really wanted pictures of both boys dressed up. Keith and I had thought about a baseball player a couple weeks ago, but never pursued it with Andrew. He had sort of worn us down. But last night in desperation, I suggested it, and he AGREED! But because it was so last minute, he ended up being more of a New England sports enthusiast, with an emphasis on baseball.

Jonathan wasn't sure about the lion costume at first, but once we got outside, he forgot about it and quickly caught on to the wonders of trick-or-treating.

And once again, the highlight of the night was handing out treats to all the trick-or-treaters who came to our door. If I didn't have a sickness requiring me to capture our kids in cute costumes, I think I would skip the whole thing next year and just let them hand out treats.