Trick-or-Treating

Being a homeowner makes Halloween so much more fun than when we lived in an apartment. Last year we got quite a lot of visitors and so we bought plenty of candy again. This year we still had a good amount of scary costumed folks ringing our bell, but the leftover candy tells me our numbers were down. Perhaps more house decorations next year will do the trick. Until then, I'm sending most of the candy to the office so it's out of the house (save for a few Butterfingers. Yum!).

Here is our traditional jack-o-lantern on our front steps. Durkin likes to say it's a 'happy birthday pumpkin' because of the candle inside. Apparently, candles = birthday. period. no questions, no debate.


He wasn't interested in carving the pumpkin or in sticking his hands in the messy goo, thankyouverymuch, so that delightful task was left to mama. Truth be told, I loved every gooey moment of it!

Here he is coloring our pumpkin:

Auntie Lizzie and cousin Gabriel came over for some trick-or-treating. Liz and I looked at each other with tired mama's eyes as if to say, 'do we really want to do this?' While it seemed like work before we ventured out, it was a great night and we're so glad we did it!

Here are the boys in their super hero costumes. Super Gabriel! Super D! How funny they both had capes this year. For the photo, we tried to get them to stand side by side, but D kept standing in front... vanity? Nah, just a 2 yr old.

Thanks for the cape, Aunt Sandi!!


Our first house was the most decorated house on the block and almost too scary for D, but as long as I held him he was quite interested in all the spooky orange glow stuff going on. G simply marched into the house and loved seeing all the strange and interesting decorations, complete with a table set for pirates. So brave!

Once inside the house, D was fine to walk on his own, but as soon as he saw an animated bat with red, beady eyes, he pointed and said, "no that, mommy. no that." So, we got our coloring book, pencil and candy and beat a hasty retreat to the safety of the street.

The rest of the evening was short but lively. Gabriel was patient and sweet as he waited for Durkin at each house (2 is slower than 4), and when Gabriel knocked, he loudly proclaimed, "trick or treat!" - too bad he didn't wait for the door to be opened first. He made sure to say it loud enough for them to hear through the door. So cute!

Both boys got quite good at saying the right words to yield some candy. D insisted on carrying his candy from house to house, and so when we arrived at the next house, he'd put the candy IN the bowl instead of taking one OUT. The end result? He put candy into the bowls at every other house. Talk about paying it forward, eh? Lol!

And there was lots and lots of running - good thing there were no cars in the streets that night. D is quite fast these days and will run all the time if he can. At home, he runs in between rooms. Pretty cool when you think about it. The world would be a very fit place if we all ran everywhere instead of walking. When we weren't knocking on doors, both boys were either running or chasing the circle of light made by my flashlight, jumping into the circle and yelling, "I got it!"

Here they are after the outing. They started to take all their stuff off, so we had to snap a photo pretty quickly - I guess they wanted to get right down to eating their candy.

What a couple of great sports they were!