boo.

There are things I love about halloween and things I don't love. I don't love all the creepy, evil stuff. But I love the fun of dressing up. And I absolutely love that neighbors are out in force and interacting. I love connecting over their little princesses or goblins. We want to be a blessing to our neighborhood and for us, this is an opportunity to do just that.

Which means, we have to buy good candy. Though I find it terribly hard to part with my Almond Joy's, Kit Kat's and Reese's. I kept with my ranking system last night. If you are cute and young enough to be trick or treating, you get a handful of the chocolates and lollipops. If you are too old or wearing any kind of bleeding costume, it is a lollipop and maybe a little tootsie roll if you're lucky. I know I said I wanted to be blessing, but I guess I have my limits.

Our street was rockin' with displays, dry ice and "Thriller" blasting. Maybe if I was more into the holiday, I would appreciate the yard turned into a cemetery more. All I know is that the trick or treaters were out in droves threatening my leftover supply of the aforementioned candy. They were even ringing the doorbell long after I shut off our front porch light which was also starting to dampen the aforementioned "I want to be a blessing" mentality.

As for my own little pumpkins, sadly we are long past the days of family themed costumes. the name of the game for me is cheap. So this year the kids were Dwight Schrute (from "The Office")...

Raggedy Ann...

(The shirt to her costume was actually a dress I wore in kindergarten. We found in while cleaning out my mother's basement. Gunga gave Emma a Raggedy Ann doll that she sleeps with every night, so this costume wasn't just cute and inexpensive. It was special too.)

G.I. Jack...

Lulu is where there was a bit of a breakdown in my cheap Halloween costume philosophy. I had a $2 pink poodle costume for her that I bought last year at a garage sale, but it was a bit too small. She didn't like it and the poodle ears wouldn't stay on her head. It was cute, but because of the hat not staying on, everyone at our church event thought she was a pig...

I couldn't have that, could I? So I bought a brand new costume for our very own Wonder Woman...
And it was worth every penny...

Poor thing, the belt kept riding up due to her exceedingly tubby belly. Let's just call it an empire waist super hero suit, okay?

Lulu loved the trick or treating gig as you can see...

Mom and Dad didn't dress up this year. Too much effort. But Bill borrowed part of Emmie's costume...

I always wondered what my Italian Stallion would look like as a redhead (not really). Now I know. And shudder.

Our evening ended with our Halloween tradition of enduring sour warheads and seeing who would break first. It's always me. These things make me want to vomit...

I would have liked to see a 24 episode where Jack Bauer used these as a form of torture.

Though this year I was exceedingly proud of myself for not spitting it out in the first 3 seconds...
I'm just that good.

Goodbye halloween, hello November and bring on the cavities!