The BIG Day!

Is it just me, or did Halloween seem to rush up on us this year?

Turned out great anyway. Shane wasn't too wild about his costume until I got it on him. He was Lion King. (It was given to us by the friend with us- her son is younger than Shane but differently built.) Same for his nose and whiskers. Austin flipped at the skunk costume (I got that last year for Shane and it didn't fit, this year, Austin revolts- will I ever get my little Stinker?) so we pulled out the jaguar/leopard outfit I made out of an old pair of my PJ pants for Shane 2 years ago. Both the boys were cool with that, Shane thought it was Baby Jaguar from Diego and Austin wasn't down with the hat or mittens- picky kid.

At 4'o'clock-ish we woke up Daddy from his nap on the couch (he went to their feild day thing that morning and got the rest of the day off!) and headed downtown. The city closes down a part of the main drag so it's a little safer for the kids to trick-or-treat at the stores. There was even one restaurant that does NOT sit on the main road that brought their van and parked on the side of the road to give out free ice cream coupons. Normally, we don't condone or encourage the kids to take candy from strangers sitting in cars, so we did it for them. Don't want to start a habit.

We met up with Christiana, my boss and friend, and her little boy Tristan- who was JayJay the Jetplane if anyone was wondering. It didn't take long for the boys to figure out what the main theme was- CANDY! Shane even said 'Trick-or-treat' fairly clearly every time I prompted him.

It was hard as heck to ge Austin out of anywhere a girl was giving the candy. They'd coo and aww at him- all he wanted was the candy. Sometimes I think it was more the combo of Austin and Daddy, but I'm a bit predjudice. Daddy went as a Redneck (again).

We met up with Woods and Angie, they had a hard time keeping up wth the boy's rush. He was adorable as a penguin- that everyone thought was a puffin.

I went as a Native American- Midwest area (that was the only good pictur of face painting that I could find quickly online), but I'm sure everyone just thought I was weird.

Down town took us about an hour, the kids had a blast together. We saw McGruff the Crime Dog who gave us glow-bracelets. Tristan kept checking for Shane after every stop, and Shane kept running off yelling "Tristan wait a me!" (I say it to him all the time so h knows it pretty well.) With only one or two near misses from the boys running away (and into the road) it was a good night. We said good bye to our friends, and Thank-you to Tristan/JayJay (he can't have alot of stuff, like corn syrup, the main ingredient in candy- so he gave it to Shane). We headed home.

The pumpkin and my minimal decorations turned out pretty good. The spider-webs kept catching costumes. Just after we got home they shut down housing for the trick-or-treating, though there'd already been a ton of kids we'd missed. In the next 2 hours we gave out a ton of candy. I stayed to pass out the loot while Brett took Shane out around. When they finished (they dropped by twice to empty the bucket), Austin was still itching to go. So Shane watched a movie and attacked the catwhile Dad went out again, just to the best houses, this time with Austin in tow. They came back with as much candy as Shane had. I had to root through thier candy to find the stuff they wouldn't eat and even then I ran out of candy. Luckily, the only trick-or-treaters left were the teenagers with pillow cases.

The boys were beyond exhausted, and so refused to sleep. C'est La Vie!