Happy Halloween!

Another Halloween is on the books (in the books?). This morning I woke up to the sound of excited voices discussing candy and costumes and how many pieces they thought mom would let them eat (4) before cutting them off.

Up until the other day I would have said that Halloween was far and away my kids' favorite holiday that wasn't Christmas, but while grocery shopping Tyler wistfully said, "Oh man, I can't wait for Thanksgiving." to which Lily replied, "Yeeeeaaah!"

I laughed and asked them why the Thanksgiving enthusiasm? Tyler looked at me like I was insane and said, "All the great food!" Lily scoff-laughed, shaking her head at my foolishness.

Yeah. They are definitely my children.

In spite of it not being Thanksgiving day, the kids still managed to make the best of it and enjoy themselves. Charlotte had her first school Halloween party where she raked in so much candy that had she been an only child we would have totally told her that was all there was to Halloween. Lucky for her, she has siblings who know better.

Before we headed out for the night we stopped by our neighbors house to show off the kids costumes. I didn't ask her if she cared if I plastered her all over my blog, but I don't really feel bad because she is in Hawaii for the next nine days. She will be too relaxed to get mad at me.

Right, Carla? Right.

Halloween Hullabaloo

It finally feels like fall. It's been overcast and windy and grey all day long. The kind of day that begs for hot chocolate or apple cider and fuzzy pyjamas. It's the perfect kind of day to curl up with a book or a magazine or a movie.

I've been scouring Pinterest and all my favorite online magazines for ideas on how to decorate for Halloween. Last year I opted out, but Charlotte isn't going to let that fly this year. Every time we pass a well decorated house she gets so excited and makes sure I notice all the details so "we can do it at home, too, Mommy!"

In years past we have had costume parties (that is Aaron dressed up as Jared the Subway guy), delivered Boo Bags (bags of candy and toys left on our friends porches), painted pumpkins (no one in this house likes touching pumpkin guts), decorated Ginger Bread Haunted Houses (my favorite tradition, by far), and Pumpkin Parties with lots of pumpkiny foods.

I'm thinking we will definitely be bringing back the Boo Bags, and the Haunted Houses. We, unfortunately, are stuck gutting pumpkins until the kids are old enough to do their own. Ugh.

Any gotta-do projects that we should add to our list?

 Some great reads:
Anthology Magazine
Holiday with Mathew Mead
Sweet Paul
The Violet