Halloween, 2014.

 Another Halloween come and gone!  

My kids love the idea of dressing up in costumes and having people give them candy...and why wouldn't they?!  Though there are definitely things I don't like about Halloween, I do like that we get to meet and visit with people in our neighborhood.  We purposely stick within a block or two of our house, and I think each year we meet someone new.  We also have enough retired neighbors nearby that know our kids (at least who they are) and appreciate seeing them (or at least I like to think so).  Unfortunately, we don't hand out a lot of candy since we're out of the house, but I also think it would be fun to stay home and meet and bless the people who come to our door.  I envision passing out hot cider to the adults and having neighborly conversations.  It just seems like an easy night to "love your neighbor".

This year was also special because Grammy and Grandpa Joe were here for trick-or-treating.  They came in to celebrate Addie's birthday a few days late so that they could be here for Halloween as well.

The afternoon of October 31 was spent as it should be.  I was making last minute costume adjustments and the kids were cleaning out their pumpkins!  Usually Matt is the carver, but since he was working it was good grandma and grandpa were here!

Evelyn was very much into this pumpkin thing.  She scooped out that pumpkin like a champ!

I don't know why I failed to get a photo of the finished pumpkins...

Nathan decided that pumpkins were too smelly and instead played his Nintendo DS.  On a typical week he only gets to play with his DS Friday through Sunday, so rare is the Friday afternoon when he doesn't ask to play it.

With pumpkins carved (and seeds reserved for roasting), we ate some chili for dinner and then prepared to hit the streets. 

Here's my crew:  tree, Captain Rex, the Incredible Hulk, and a giraffe.

Bonus, you can see all the pumpkins in the above photo!  Addie's is on the top (it has distinct features like ears and a uni-brow), Ella's is in the middle, and Evelyn's is on the bottom.  The girls drew the faces on the pumpkins with marker, then Grammy and Grandpa Joe carved them out.  I'm guessing Evelyn had a little help, but I think the mouth was all her design.

Here is Nathan as Captain Rex.  

I really don't know who this is.  All I know is that he is from Star Wars and either a Storm Trooper or a Clone Trooper (is there a difference?)  Nathan has never seen Star Wars but for some reason has a wealth of Star Wars knowledge and may be slightly obsessed.

Ella as a maple tree.

Ella decided a few weeks ago that she would like to be a tree.  She had a few elaborate ideas as to what this would look like.  With Ella the fancier the better.  However my general rule with Halloween costumes is that I don't want to spend money on them, or a lot of time.  So we collected leaves and Mod Podged them, then hot glued them to a headband.  Thankfully we already had a squirrel and some birds that we could just stitch to a brown jacket.  Ella decided to ditch the birds, apparently my sewing skills were not up to par.  It's totally simple and so much more could have been done, but in the end it worked and Ella was satisfied.

Here is Adeline as the Incredible Hulk.

 

This summer we had some neighbors move, and we were the recipients of some old costumes that no longer fit their eleven year-old son.  So, that is where both the clone trooper and Hulk costumes came from.  It worked perfectly with my "no time no money" costume rule.

It was humorous to me, though perhaps appropriate, that Addie chose the Hulk.  She practiced yelling "Hulk Smash" a lot.  She wasn't brave enough to say it to anyone while out though.  She also loves princesses, but  I think it came down to hearing Nathan talk about the Hulk and wanting her big brother to think she was cool. 

 

Finally, here is Evelyn giraffe.

I still remember buying this costume when Nathan was a year old.  I bought it at Babies R Us, questioning the $20 price tag (which I used to do A LOT).  However, this is now the seventh time this has been worn by a Thompson!  Everyone has worn it twice, except Ella. Sadly I think it may retire now, but it will always be special to me.

Evelyn was also good at the awkward trick-or-treat lingering.  She discovered at a few houses if you just keep standing there people will feel obligated to put more candy into your bucket!

We try to emphasize thankfulness when trick-or-treating.  To help with this, Matt and I established a rule that if you don't say "thank you" we take a piece of candy.  We remind them of the rule before we start, but then not again until we are all finished. (Nothing is more annoying than saying repeatedly, "what do you say..." at every house).  It may sound harsh, but it works.  The three oldest said thank you at every.single.house.

We finished up about 7:20 p.m.  It sounds early, but it had been dark and cold for much of our walking.  Once the sun went down Nathan kept complaining about his cold hands, and Evelyn kept calmly repeating, "me scared."

Don't worry, there was still much loot brought home!

Nathan, of course, counted his.  

I believe he came up with 84 pieces...or something in that ballpark.

We don't typically keep candy in our home, but we also don't get rid of (most) Halloween candy.  We try to live by an 80/20 rule, which basically means that we eat  healthy unprocessed foods at home, but if we're out or pick up an occasional pizza we don't have to freak out about it either.  So, the kids get about one piece a day as part of the 20.  The problem with this rule is that Matt has developed somewhat of habit of declaring much of what he eats as part of his 20.  My 20 may or may not be consisting of mini Snicker bars.

Addie decided to sort her candy as she counted it. She definitely had the most M&Ms! 

 

Ella didn't count hers because it's not super important to her.  Evelyn can only count to five, but she was just excited to eat candy.  Addie and she are definitely the reasons the treat buckets are stored on top of the kitchen cabinets!

The unanimous favorites of the night were the can of root beer and the homemade popcorn ball by our neighbor Miss Betty.

End result, it was a fun night!  I definitely respect others who choose to not participate in Halloween, and have considered that approach myself.  For now though I'm thankful that it can be a fun, safe, night out in our neighborhood.  In the future I want to humbly ask God for ways we can use this night to make fun memories and bless others...not just gather hoards of candy!