Happy Halloween!

After weeks of planning, days of baking and staying up late to decorate for the Halloween party, I was a bit pooped after it was over (and that was only at noon!).  But we still had the rest of the day to celebrate Halloween and an evening of trick-or-treating to get ready for, so with a large cup of coffee in hand, I pulled it together and we kept on going - whew!

Since our neighborhood is a great place for trick-or-treating, we had the Goodys over and set out with our buckets in hand.  And disappoint it did not!  One of the great things about our neighborhood is that there are blocks and blocks of amazing families all around us.  And all of these families know how to celebrate this holiday.  Many people go all out in decorating the outside of their house.  Some people even played spooky music to go along with their décor.  Some had over-the-top haunted houses.  Some even sat outside with fire pits and drinks in hand, passing out their supply of candy to the masses of kids walking by.  And then there were some who knew this needed to be a holiday for the adults, too, as one passed out wizard concoctions (basically shots :) at their mad scientist lab they set up in their driveway, while another had a hot dog station set up for hungry customers.  Just another reason to love living where we do :)

Spider-Man and his sidekick Spider-Girl

Trying to go along with the kids' costume theme, I was supposed to be Cat Woman, but Tristan thought I was a character from "What Does the Fox Say".  Oops.

All ready to go out!  And Eli's second costume change of the day.

This is how Talia rolled.  So much easier to manage a one year old this way.  I was pretty sure we were going to lose the boys in the huge masses of people.  It probably would have been easier if we had had a bigger wagon to corral all three of them!

Love the Halloween décor!  I'll have to remember to make our house more "smooky" (as Tristan calls it :) next year.

Someone decided to jump ship and chase after the boys for her first trick-or-treating experience. 

People come from all over to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood, as is evidenced by the long lines of kids at some of the houses. And there were a few other Spider-Men, too :)

Brian went as someone from Duck Dynasty.  Pretty fitting I'd say.