Halloween Review

 

Well, for the first time since Casey was born we did not make it to a pumpkin patch.  At all.  Between the rain and the parties, it just never worked out.  Consequently, we found ourselves without pumpkins on Halloween afternoon.  With nothing to carve, I set out in search of a couple of pumpkins.  SIX stores later (I am not exaggerating), I came up empty-handed.  So Casey and I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies from scratch while Marcie and Jason drew pictures (and Tate napped).

Not to fret, though, we had plenty of fun over the Halloween weekend, even without the pumpkin-carving.  On Saturday, we attended a costume party and brought some ghoulish appetizers to share:

 

And then on Halloween, we put the finishing touches on the costumes and headed down the hill (where the street is pretty flat) for dinner and trick-or-treating with some friends.  It’s worth mentioning that our friends at the bottom of the hill will typically go through five giant Costco bags of candy on Halloween.  People drive to our neighborhood to go trick-or-treating.  There are so many trick-or-treaters, people don’t bother to open and close their doors—they just set up outside on the driveway.  We lucked out with beautiful weather, and as we raced after the kids, I commented to Jason that it felt like we were in a scene from a movie.  Just then, I looked up to see a small group of kids blowing by on their scooters.  It was pretty idyllic.

For comparison, we hand out full-size candy bars.  To encourage the trek up the hill.  And we never go through a single, 30-bar box from Costco.  Even when we leave the lights on until 9:00 p.m.

After the kids were finished, we checked through the candy (and otter pop) at home, told the kids they could each keep five pieces of their choice (one for each day this week after school), and then offered them $5 each for the remainder of the candy.  Well, offer is putting it nicely.  We told them we were taking their candy, and if they wanted $5 in exchange, well, we’d give them the money.  They took the money.

Alas, I did not do a good job with photos.  When Casey and Marcie were smaller, I’d chase after them with the camera.  Impose myself on neighbors so that I could capture the actual moment of trick-or-treating.  This year, with the almost-20-pounds of Tate strapped to me, chasing after the bigger kids, keeping up was all I could hope to do.  So no pictures.  Except the one I grabbed of Tate experiencing his first piece of Halloween candy (Reese’s peanut butter cup):

  

And this one I snapped just before we left the house.  Not of the kids, though—oh no.  This one is of Super Mario, Baby Mario and a High School Musical Cheerleader.