HAPPY HALLOWEEN Y'ALL!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN Y'ALL!

From our little pumpkins to yours! 

It is official - Halloween is the craziest day/week of the year.  Costume parades, pumpkin patch visits, fall festivals and nonstop pictures to capture it all... what a busy week for all of us.  I was ready to go to bed at about 3 o'clock this afternoon, after  spending two hours with 20 kindergartens for a fall festival.  Wow!  Someone, please call the president.  We need to pay our kindergarten teachers more money or else get them more access to wine.

AJ was so excited all day.  He kept asking "is it Halloween yet?".  Just so no pumpkin patch issues occurred (refer to that blog post if you missed it, it's funny) I made sure he understand that for Mommy, Halloween doesn't start until we get some fun pictures of our family and our costumes in our yard.  And if pictures don't happen, then candy doesn't.  Wow!  I think the pictures speak for themselves to see if my point was driven home.  I love our family shot!  Even Baby K woke up for it!

Speaking of baby K, here she was in her "Baby's 1st Halloween" outfit for the day.  Such a cutie!

Our little trick o' treaters!  A sleepy baby pumpkin, Taylor Swift and Batman!

Haha - Batman giving us some "flare"

Sweet baby K - being a pumpkin is hard work, especially when you are so cute.  With a full tummy and a warm outfit, she fell asleep after we put her on the pumpkins for this picture. 

She fits right in the pumpkin patch - so tiny, even at 3 months old

I love this picture of my three sweeties :-)

Baby K just kept on sleeping....

Fear not neighbors, Batman is here to save the day!  I was proud of this costume.  We had the cape, so I went out and got some black sweats and a black shirt.  I ironed on the batman patch to his shirt and bought a piece of yellow felt to make a belt.  A costume for under $10!  And he looks so handsome too!

Introducing: Taylor Swift!  Oh yeah, this year our big girl decided she was going as her favorite singer.  She already knows the words to several songs on TS's new album (that we of course bought on the first day it was released as we are her BIGGEST fan).  She already had the dress up dress, she just added a little rock star attitude :-)

Oh and we know how to work a camera - we are used to paparazzi.  Funny story - this morning as I dropped her off at school and opened her car door for her, she leaped out of the car, adjusted her sunglasses and said to me "It's okay that we are late, Taylor is probably always a little late to stuff".  Whew - glad we cleared that up Ms. Diva.  I did have to carry her bag to the door for her so her dress wouldn't get ruined.  Oh dear - she was loving this role.

After our family photo session, we headed down the street to take a few pictures with our friends before Trick o' Treating.  I love this shot of Batman and Mr. Incredible.  Saving the world or fighting one another, you decide.

 

Ahh Batman and Mr. Incredible, still besties!

The girls

Our friends took the above shots - so sweet! Thank you dear friends for sharing all these with us!  We are so blessed to be surrounded by some amazing families and get to share special times like this together.

Before we knew it, the kids were off in a candy finding frenzy of rushing door to door in search of anyone who was home to give them treats.   This was the first year that KK and AJ were literally running door to door with their older friends.  We only let them go a few houses before we slowed them down and got them out of the "mob" they were in.  We spent the evening treating with our neighbors who are the same age.  It was a nice pace and fun to watch the kids be brave enough this year to go up to houses without us (we watched from the driveway, no worries).

My baby pumpkin woke up a few times during the night to smile and coo before deciding we were strange and going back to snooze.

Daddy being silly with AJ's bat mask.

AJ and his glow bat mask

Our troop walking around the 'hood

KK reminding everyone they have to say "trick or treat".  Her in best teacher voice she would say "It's like saying thank you, so we have to say it".  As the oldest, she decided she was the voice of reason.

We did meet up with our AWESOME cousins for a nighttime shot and hit a few houses together - loved it!

Something sweet did happen that I don't want to forget.  When our cousins went to their car to go home for the evening, they found that someone had opened all their car doors and trunk and turned on all the lights to the car before taking off.  I guess they thought it was funny.  But sadly, aside from causing fear and concern, they also drained the car battery.  We walked the kids to our house while the car was getting jumped.  Sweet G was so shaken and I overhead the following talk that melted my heart:

G (super sad):  "KK why would someone do that to my mommy's car?   Why did they have to do that?"

KK (after a small pause, grabs G's hand and says with conviction): "Some people just don't have Jesus in their heart.  Or God.  And they just do mean things to people 'cause they don't care."

G takes a minute to soak that in, then puts her arm around KK and says with a little less sadness in her voice:  "Well, it's a good thing we have Jesus in our hearts.  We won't do mean stuff like that to hurt people."

KK smiling: "Yeah G, we got Jesus so we will be good."

My heart just filled with Joy Joy Joy!  These little girls were able to comfort one another with the knowledge that they got Jesus in their hearts.  I can't find the words - just JOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After all was resolved and our cousins were home safe, we decided to see what the evening had brought (minus the best conversation I have ever overhead from two kindergartners which was my treat of the night).   Here is our stash after a two hour walk around our neighborhood.  I would venture to say we did great all around.

Baby K and Daddy, snuggling after our busy little night.

Well Taylor, Batman and Baby pumpkin all went to bed rather quickly - two hours of treating will do that to you.  

So we bid you SWEET DREAMS friends! 

May the candy coma and exhaustion not affect tomorrow too badly  :-)