HALLOWEEN!!!

This is what, my 4th or 5th post about Halloween stuff? At least I'm pretty sure it will be my last, but I won't make any promises...

This will be a long post with a ton of pictures....all for Justin's benefit.

We started our day off with cinnamon rolls and Halloween-shaped pancakes. I meant to do sugar cookies with the girls and let them make fun Halloween shapes, but that never happened...so, I let them play with their pancakes.

Sydnee's

Charlee's Justee's
Sydnee kept asking all day, "When is it going to be night? I can't wait until it is night time!"

It took a little longer to get the 3 of them ready by myself than I thought, so I didn't get outside to take pictures until it was about dark. I had to use a flash for all my pics, I wanted to get out a little earlier, but that's alright.

I thought the girls looked pretty good: A spooky ghost, a scary skeleton, and a cute jack-o-lantern.
I like my girls to dress up as something scary, or at least as something that fits old Halloween traditions. I strongly encourage them to stay away from the princess costumes, but still let them make the choice (they just have to pick from my options. ;) Sydnee liked the idea of this skeleton because it had a cute skirt and purse with it. She really liked my idea of pink hair to match. She ended up looking like a punk-skeleton.I asked her to make some scary faces, and this is what she gave me:

Pretty scary if you ask me.

Charlee was a ghost and despite being very tired and a huge pain while I was getting her ready, she was very excited to go trick-or-treating. Charlee was probably the most gun-ho. She RAN from house to house, we had to keep telling her to wait for everyone. She did not like to skip houses and it wasn't until right at the end, when her bucket was very heavy, that she slowed down and wasn't the first to the doors. It was a great year for her, and it kills me that Justin didn't get to witness it. I am kicking myself right now that I didn't video...I just had too much on my plate to do that too. So sorry Justin. :(This is what Charlee thinks is a scary ghost face:
Justee was so excited to put her costume on. She was dancing around, kicking her feet, and giggling the whole time. It was kind of hard to get a picture of her because she was running all over the place. She took a few spills, but that wasn't going to stop her.

It looked like she was dancing with this skeleton fragment: Here she is trudging along. At one point she was dragging her pumpkin because it was so heavy with all that candy in it.Justee got tired of her hat, so I took it upon myself to sport the pumpkin top.Justee was so cute saying tee-o-teat. Eventually it turned into just teat. She knew she didn't want to mess with any of that trick nonsense. ;) She always said thank you, which I decided sounds most like kankoo. Sometimes she said kankoo all the way back from the door. Very cute.

She loved getting the candy, but she started wanting to be carried to the doors, and I am so grateful for the help of good friends Josh and Trisha. Josh offered to pack Justee around and make my life a whole lot easier. I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed my Halloween as much without their company.

They have twin 8 (or maybe 9?) year old boys.

Here is our whole trick-or-treating party:

After we made our trip through the neighborhood, we headed back to our house for our annual hot cider punch. If you like hot apple cider, you should try this:

1 cup orange juice, 1 cup pineapple juice, 2 quarts apple cider, 4 cinnamon sticks. Put in crock pot on low for 2 to 4 hours.

It is very yummy and perfect after a long night of t-0r-ting. Usually I would say cold night too, but this year the weather was amazing! It was so nice out...I think it hit 80 during the day. I can't remember a Halloween without coats or even jackets and tons of extra layers (except for our year in Alabama.) No one got cold and we all had a great time! Plus...The kids got a ton of candy:

After cider we all started getting a little hungry since we forgot all about dinner. So Trish picked up some pizzas and we hung out for a while. It was a great Halloween except for the one missing family member...at least we got to talk to him on the phone.