Annie loves to dress and decorate for holidays. She and Lauren had their "during the day" Halloween clothes laying out before they went to bed on October 30.
I'm definitely the kind of mom who encourages my kids to raid the dress up bin an hour before trick-or-treating starts (rather than planning elaborate costumes weeks in advance... and since I don't sew or knit, I certainly don't make their costumes). The kids did pretty well coming up with costumes this year. We had two cowboys.
Two little Ingalls girls. Having a mother-in-law who makes beautiful costumes for my kids helps a lot with Halloween costume planning.
And Jakin was a Viking
Aidan wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he got to ride on Daddy's shoulders and people gave him candy every once in a while, so he was happy.
Lauren with her good buddy, Nate. Lauren RAN for the first half of the night. Seeing her run and run from house to house with that cute little costume on was the highlight of the night for me.
Eating candy after trick-or-treating
Another part of the Halloween tradition that my kids love is the opportunity to dump all of their candy on to the floor at the end of the night. After sorting comes trading! While the big boys and the girls went off to trade with their friends, Lauren stayed on the porch to trade with Pete. He and his wife had dressed up as bacon and eggs. Pete reasoned that since he was dressed up, he could take a bag and trick-or-treat right along with the kids. Much to his wife's mortification, Pete came home with a whole bag of candy and he and Lauren worked some deals in the Halloween after party.
