first things first

Halloween. I'm so behind. I feel like I've been so busy around here, but then I stop and think and I can't think of real busyness. Just otherwise occupied I guess.
Anyway, here are pictures from Halloween. It's weird, I've never been a real Halloween person. I think I hated Halloween as a kid because I was so shy. I hated going trick or treating and having to *gulp* actually speak to adults. Even though it was a simple script of 'Trick or Treat', and 'Thank You'. I hated to draw attention to myself and I felt like wearing a costume did just that.
I'm still not a fan of Halloween now in the scary and spooky aspect. I like pumpkins and feeling Fallish and dressing up and having parties, but I hate the parts that reference more to the "real" origins of Halloween, with the witches and the spooks and ghosts and bloody gory honestly scary stuff. I guess I see it as more of a fun holiday and scary stuff with blood and guts or demons and goblins isn't fun to me and isn't the kind of stuff I think we should be celebrating. My kids are honesly scared stiff by half the stuff they saw in the stores this season, not to mention many of the costumes and neighborhood decorations that we came across on our street Trick or Treating. Savannah actually had nightmares that night. I just don't think that's what a holiday should be about. I'm not amused by the fact that my 8 year old neighbor wants to run around with a Freddie Kruger mask on, or that some of our best friends dress up all Dracula-ey with deathly white make-up, scary dark sunken eyes and blood dripping from their mouths and then hold their 8 month old all evening at a party. That poor kid cried almost the whole night because she didn't know where her mommy and daddy went. Or she was scared of them.
Probably both.

Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox here and just say that we like to keep Halloween fun and not too scary. We had a great time Trick or Treating this year. I've felt in years past much like Heather voiced in her post last week... why are we encourageing our kids to go from door to door to beg for candy they don't need? But this year felt different. It seemed like our whole neighborhood was outside this Halloween, it felt like a big friendly party, hanging out on front porches handing out candy, older couples setting up donut and hot cider tables in their front yard, kids in big friendly groups trick or treating, everyone stopping in driveways and in the middle of the street to chat... it felt like a big giant neighborhood gathering instead of just going door to door to ask strangers for treats. Maybe because we know so many of our neighbors. Maybe because there are so many kids in the neighborhood. I don't know. But I thought it was fun.

Here are the long awaited costumes. Savannah, of course, was a cute black kitty (she wanted me to add and let you all know that she had pink sparkles on her nose!), and Sawyer was a little stinker of a skunk. And they were pretty stinkin' cute if I do say so myself...