Hallowed Evening

What is it the middle of November...time to tell you all about our Halloween!

The day started off by waking up bright and early, getting kids in their costumes, then heading to the zoo. Boo at the Zoo....it's a family favorite. Loads of people, but usually well worth the fun. There are some perty darn cute kids running 'round that-there zoo. Although, again without my camera! What is the deal? Cell phones to the rescue.

There are some awesome vendors there as well. The kids usually get the normal candy as well as string cheese, chocolate milk, egg nog and this year we even got Village Inn Pie! A long with the yummy goodies usually comes advertisements and coupons. But some of those coupons are pretty great!

Just after we entered the park we saw the Grey Wolf up by his den. I pointed it out to Rusty and he instantly told me how scared he was. He's been going through a "big bad Wolf" stage and I tell him the only wolves are drawing in the books and cartoons in movies....and the one at the zoo locked in a cage...so i guess seeing the wolf face to face wasn't great for Russ! Funny though.We also had to get a picture of Rusty next to the crocodile...you know, because he was dressed as a crocodile! {wink}Then we enjoyed a ride on the carousel...

Joshie was too far away, his picture didn't turn out, you couldn't tell what we were taking a picture of.

Some of the free coupons were free kids meals certificates for several different places. We were leaving the zoo at lunch time so I suggested that we go to one of the places to eat lunch. But as always, the hard part is choosing where to go...at least it was already narrowed down to 4 places. As we were headed down the road Shawn saw a Red Robin, and pulled in. Decision made! First place he saw that he knew we had coupons for! When we got into the restaurant we were informed that there was an ongoing costume contest the entire day. I put my kids names into the contest, the manager came over and "judged" the kids and complemented each one on what she like about their costumes...she was really nice making each of my kids feel like they had the greatest costume.

Shawn was texting during lunch (I know, horrible huh?!) and was mentioning to his brother how the apple doesn't fall far from the geek/nerd tree and to prove his point, Shawn had Josh stand up so he could take this picture and send it.

Turns out I'm really glad he did, so that I would have a picture to go along with the news that just before heading out to go trick or treating, we got a phone call telling us that Joshua won the costume contest and got an iPod Nano from Red Robin! They said he had on a very clever costume for someone his age! Josh was SO excited! I thought it was awesome too, since the most we spent on Josh's costume was $1! We went to the Dollar Store and bought him some glasses and then took out the lenses! Nerds are cool!

When we got home I went through the candy from dad's work and boo and the zoo and put all the yucky candy in the bowl to hand out to trick or treaters...yeah I'm that awesome.

At the appointed time we started getting ready to head out trick-or-treating! I snapped a few pictures and just as we were to head out, it started raining...like, head for higher grounds, raining! So we decided to wait it out for a few more minutes! It was raining so hard that we have do keep bailing out the jack-o-lanterns...poor dears kept drowning!But there is only so long you can wait when it's time to go trick or treating! (and when everyone is already bundled up and starting to get HOT!) So we grabbed some umbrella's and headed out!I love that you can't even tell Mily or Josh is wearing a costume because of all the extra warm clothing we had to add. Luckily, Wes and Ruty's costumes fit over the top of their coats!Rusty only made it to maybe a dozen houses before he just stayed in the stroller. Not too bad for a two year old on a cold and rainy night.There are a few houses in our neighborhood that we HAVE to go to. The lady who gives out warm scones to the adults, The other lady who gives out home-made doughnuts and the family who opens their garage, has a fog machine going and let's you pick from cotton candy, popcorn, hot dogs and home-made root beer! Our neighborhood is aWeSoMe! After we moved in last year and realized how big Halloween is in this neighborhood, we were talking about having to step up our game and pass out steak or something....Nah, how about the nasty candy, that we left out on the porch!

After we had our fill of trick-or-treating we hurried home so the kids could enjoy the equally fun part of the night, passing out the candy! Here are my helpers. Josh and Dad ran to Red Robin real quick to claim Josh's prize!Especially since mom had directed them to always give people HANDFULS ! So I guess we're not too bad of a house to visit after all!

This is the little cauldron I've had since before I was married...or shortly thereafter, I can't remember...it's old and it's starting to show. Also my brand new ghost...It actually flies around on a cable and has "spooky" moaning sounds as it flies...the kids love it. It's sound activated so when the trick or treaters make noise, it starts up. There were a few times we opened the door and instead of the kids looking at us holding their bags open, they were all looking over at the ghost! hahaha, perfect! Although because of the rain the ghost had to be under the porch. I was hoping to fly him between a few of our trees...that would have been fun. I guess we'll have to wait for next year!

Well, GOSH! That was a long post. Halloween...it was great, now it's done...time to look forward to the next holiday!