Halloween 2016

What with all the school and church and doughnut parties before hand, by the time Halloween finally gets here it always feels underwhelming. Kinda like something we just have to get over with. Which is ridiculous because Halloween is AWESOME. It's kids dressed up and begging for candy, how is this not amazing? (Because as an adult it is frowned upon to beg for candy. Also, you have to pay for all the candy and do all the work for the costumes. Harrumph.)

But, lest you think I'm some sort of Halloween Grinch, we had a great evening. First, I had to wrangle all the kids into their costumes and take pictures because that is what you do. You'd have thought I was torturing them. Maybe I was torturing them. You know what? So what. I made these dang costumes and I was owed some picture taking. Punk kids.

First up: Spencer. It took me forever to get him to decide on a costume, and when he did he came up with this:

Yeah, I don't know who/what that is, either. I'm not cool enough. Apparently it's some web comic he and all his friends are obsessed with. Okaaaayyy... so this is what i came up with. Not bad, right? I should've gotten a better picture of the hat and the horns. They were cool.

Josh took a long time deciding, too. He finally declared he wanted to be a glow stick man. I knew this would just be torture oodles of fun. See, it looks all easy, but it's not. I ended up sewing little fishing line hoops all over his pants and hoodie and then using those and packing tape to keep things in place. It worked pretty well, but boy did he complain when putting it on. But let's be honest here - he woulda complained about anything, so whatever. I'm over it. It didn't look like much in the light.

But once it got dark it looked pretty cool!

Cole was by far the easiest costume this year - he wanted to be a vampire. We had all the clothes so I just bought a cheapo makeup kit (fangs included!) and called it good. He didn't like the blood on the sides of his mouth, so we skipped most of that. Doesn't he look so old in this picture? When did he get so big?!

This is him trying to look scary. (It made me giggle!)

Finally, my piece-de-resistance: Tess the Taco! As in, it's TACO TESSDAY!!!

Hahahahahaha!!! Oh man. I love this costume. One day she just declared she wanted to be a taco for Halloween, and I knew I had to make it so. It was actually a pretty easy costume to make - all felt and foam board and hot glue. Oh mercy, she is the cutest.

Tess being Tess, she had to make a face like this at least once.

This is how I felt after having to deal with all these rotten children acting as if I were the meanest mom in the world, forcing them to smile for pictures.

But I sweetened up once I got to put on my Halloween fascinator. I'm so cool.

That night we had our usual pizza for dinner with the Reams, who were joining us for Trick-or-Treating. (Sans Gigi, though, who was traveling back from a quick trip to UT. We missed you, Gigi! Never be gone for Halloween again!!)

Bergen and Logan were super cute and didn't hassle me at all about taking a picture. My kids could learn a thing or two from those Reams.

For the first time in memory on Halloween in Indiana it: 1) wasn't raining, and 2) it wasn't even cold. In fact, it was in the 70s! No one even needed a jacket. Will wonders never cease?

Oh mercy. Following this taco around made me smile. She got SO MANY compliments and joyful exclamations of "Oh my! It's a taco!" She endured it, but Tess did not really appreciate the extra attention. (I think I was like that as a kid, too.)

Tess went around the circle and was done, so we spent the rest of the evening handing out candy. It was such a nice night that we just sat on the porch. Here's Tess desperately waiting for some trick-or-treaters.

I really do love our neighborhood. It's just so perfect for us. Here's a little video of the sounds of Halloween in The Landing. Oh, and Tess.

We of course took a few selfies as well.

I thought she said "Look scared", but I think she really said "Look scary." Either way, this is an awesome picture. (It looks like I think we're about to get murdered.)

The evening ended with the kids sorting through their loot, making trades and eating their favorites. They ended up only going to bed about an hour later than normal, which isn't bad considering it was a school night.

I got some pictures of our pumpkins just before blowing out their candles. This is the little star pumpkin Tess and I carved. She was quite proud of it.

Here's Spencer's first attempt at carving a pumpkin all by himself. It's some logo or something something something... I dunno. I'm not cool enough to know. But it was a difficult carving and he did a great job!

And finally, here's mine. I went for the classic. And got lots of compliments on it, mainly because I don't think most people do the classic faces anymore.

I discovered that night that none of my kids like Almond Joy. This is ridiculous, because those things are tasty. (Ironically, I didn't like Almond Joy as a kid either.) Lance and I ended our evening catching up on The Walking Dead and enjoying a few pieces of candy stolen from the kids, as is our parental right.