Our Halloween!

Wow! Yesterday was a long day!

We had plans to go over to our friend's house for dinner and then trick-or-treat with them in their neighborhood. And, of course, since we were going over there for dinner and trick-or-treating and that Rich had to work, that meant we'd be leaving around 5:30pm.

As soon as I picked Sam up from school (at noon) he started asking when we were going to Miss Mary's house. I convinced him to eat lunch and take a nap (he slept for 2 hours! Yay) because it was still a ways off. Once Josh got home at 2:30 all the excitement and subsequent tears that follow, began! I knew that from 2:30 until 5:30 when we left was going to be a challenge so I was a bit relieved when a boy that lives down the street came to play with Josh. It got the boys outside and not thinking about "Trick-or-Treat!"

However, about 4:30 when I told the boys to come in because it was time to do homework and start getting ready, things went swiftly downhill.

At one point Josh was crying on the stairs saying "Halloween is RUINED! This is the worst Halloween EVER!!!" Poor kid! He was just so excited!

Finally, it was 5:30 and we were ready to go! We headed over to Mary's house and the boys had a blast playing before dinner. Josh and Mary's oldest Cade really play well together and don't really get to play as much as they used to. They were watching "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and Josh thought it was the funniest thing ever! He kept saying, "I got a rock!"

Then the boys put on their costumes. Meet "Skull Warrior" and the "skeleton."

The neighborhood Mary lives in had a little Halloween Parade with the kids just before "Trick-or-Treating" started. All the kids gathered at one end of the street and walked down to the other end. It was very cute!

Waiting for the Parade to start

The Skull Warrior with his Mommy (he didn't like the mask very much so it didn't last too long). He looks just like his father!

Mommy and her little skeleton!

I love this one... You know he's thinking, "Can't we just go already!"

FINALLY! The parade begins!

We walked from one end of the street, around the corner and up to the entrance to their neighborhood. Then everyone started Trick-or-Treating. And it was pretty cool because we were all there together at the start, it was like the whole neighborhood was doing it together.

While all the other kids were in line across the street, I sent Josh and Sam over to a house where there was "no waiting..."

Sam had the all the women just enthralled! At one point he came back to show Daddy what he got and Daddy asked if he had said, "Thank you!" Sam said, "Oh, I forgot!" and turned around and went back to say thank you and got more candy!

Josh was really excited and FAST! He and Daddy went ahead of Sammy and me. After we hit about 7 houses, Sam looked in his bag and said, "Mommy, do we have enough candy yet?"

And, unfortunately, Rich's work kept calling him so we could only hit a few more houses in this neighborhood, then we headed back to our own neighborhood to finish up while Daddy worked. This worked out well though because I managed to get Sam to bed then Josh and I went up and down our street and got a few of Josh's friends' houses. By then it was nearly 8:00 and he was ready to come home.

We'd left a bowl of candy outside our door while we were out and, surprisingly, it was still over half full! Josh got to pass out a few pieces of candy to some Trick-or-Treaters. We also lit our pumpkin up.

But, at the end of the night, Josh proudly proclaimed that this was the BEST HALLOWEEN EVER! Quite a change from a few short hours ago!

I hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween!

Now, are you ready for Christmas?