Trick or Treat...Smell My Feet!

Halloween takes on new meaning when you have children of your own. I have very vivid and fond memories of my childhood Halloweens, but I do not recall being hyped up already at the beginning of September!! Joshua and therefore, John Thomas (monkey see monkey do!) have been anxious and at a fevered pitch for weeks! Between the dust collecting decorations, the sugar high from all of the candy corn (Why can't I leave that alone? It's really not that good!), remembering to unplug the inflatable scarecrow when the winds were too high, the numerous (and I do mean numerous!) pieces of school art work that must be displayed, having to go down the costume aisle EVERY time we go to Wal-Mart or Target, and the keeping tabs of Joshua's behavior in order to earn his costume back (yes, he FINALLY did earn all $40 with a few days to spare!), I am worn out!!!!!!!!!!

Even Kirk was relieved when he came home from work Sunday night to find all of the decorations put away! HOWEVER, the boys will only be 2 and 7 this one time and they had a blast...the whole month!.--Which I guess is the most important thing anyway!

With Halloween falling on "game night" this year, it made things a little different. Kirk doesn't come home on Friday's before a game, so I got the boys ready and took them out to trick-or-treat in the neighborhood. (He called from the stadium to check on us; I think he was sad he was missing it!) We timed it out perfectly with our route ending just in time to hop in the van and head to the stadium. Still in our costumes, we got there just as the National Anthem was being sung, and we flew into the Red Zone for dinner. The kids so hated everyone oohhing and ahhhing over the cute little fireman and Jango Fett (sp?--I just say Star Wars)! After dinner we hurried into a classroom in the UMAC to set up for a Halloween party for all of the coaches' kids. We had bowling, a cake walk, pin-the-nose-on-the-pumpkin, bean bag toss, football toss, tons of food and prizes too! Since the clock ran continually the second half of the game, the dads were able to come up and enjoy the chaos for a little while afterwards. A great time was had by all! (The only negative of the night, was the thought that we had an 8 AM basketball game the next morning!)

Here are a few pics of the evening: