A quick Halloween post

We made it through another holiday! Although, Halloween isn't really a holiday in my book, it is more just a silly nonsense day that we continue to re-enact each year. I really have mixed emotions about the holiday as whole. on one hand, we send our kids out to go door-to-door and talk to strangers (no-no number one), ask them for something (no-no number two), and then fill their bags up with candy (no-no number three). What are we teaching our kids here? But on the other hand, I have loved going trick-or-treating ever since I was a kid - I haven't missed a year yet. I went to each and every door with the kids this year toting Emmy around. I like the thrill of running up the sidewalks and the intonation of "Trick-or-treat." I love getting candy (even though I am a serious rationer once it gets inside the house). And I love the thrill you get as a kid when you are deciding what to be and getting your costume ready and putting it on - getting to be a character of your choice was silly and fun and thrilling! So the kids and I do it each year, since I can't make up my mind on whether it is good for us or not. But we made it through it all the same!

We went to a Harvest Festival with our home school friends tonight and had some great soups followed by a sugar-free trunk-or-treat. I was a little skeptical about how much fun a sugar-free Halloween party would be, but it ended up being a lot of fun The kids got pencils, silly bands, apples, stickers, balls, and other little toys instead of the truckload of candy that normally comes with trick-or-treating (but we still got to that part later).

Teagan designed her own costume, but accidentally lost half of it at a ward Halloween get-together we had earlier this week. She was a girl from the 40's. Garrett was a Tai-Kwan-Do Master, but after keeping the belt on during the trunk-or-treat, he thought it was too itchy and took it off before I could snap a picture. (He was a green belt, for anyone interested!)Owen went as a Dragon Ninja Warrior. I had wanted him to be something kind and soft and not-wild, but once he found the ninja outfit in the dress up bin, all my imaginings of a calm Halloween flew out the window. It was karate chops and hi-yas all night long!Here are the two martial arts experts looking intimidating.And Emmy followed the line of hand-me down costumes and was the 4th little boy to look like an adorable Robin Hood/Peter Pan! Both Garrett and Owen have worn this costume when they were 2 years old, and he looked just as great in it as they did! My sister-in-law Suntaree made it for her little guy and he passed it down to us. The great controversy is who it really is: Peter or Robin.Here are the three boys in the costume - Garrett's is not a great shot, it is a picture of a blurry picture, but you can imagine his cute little turtle face among the blurry lines! Owen and Emmy's pictures were taken with my new camera, so they are more detailed, but here are the boys all dressed up as Robin Pan (or Peter Hood).

And Halloween wouldn't be Halloween to me if it didn't end with the Great Dividing of the loot. (of course divided into 'chocolate and 'non-chocolate' groupings of types and sizes!)

Adding all the sugar-filled candy and goodies to the sugar-free things they had gotten earlier made for a very large pile of goodies in our front room tonight... a total of about 20+ pounds of things! Now all this candy will be used as incentives and rewards and will last us until next May!
Another good reason why I like Halloween.