Halloween

It's the morning after Halloween....have you recovered from your sugar high yet? I'll be honest, I woke up and snuck a white chocolate Hershey's bar from Eva's stash before anybody else was awake this morning. We celebrated last night dressed as the King of Hearts, a bumblebee, and Olfa (I made my costume myself!!!). Before we get to the cuteness that was trick or treating, let me share the rest of our Halloween day....

Friday is normally our family day but Ryan had been invited to play golf so it was just another day of me and Eva. I wanted to make it a fun day but hadn't really planned anything. Originally we had tossed out the idea of going to Boo at the Zoo, but I hadn't felt well this week and nothing is more MONSTERish than an uncomfortable pregnant mom walking around for hours on a day that should be about having fun. So instead Eva and I started our morning by getting a milk box and a Pumpkin Spice latte at Starbucks. To add a little TREAT to our morning we brought some favorite Halloween books to read while we enjoyed our beverages. Then I needed to grab something from Grapevine Mills mall, so I decided that I would TRICK her into a bit of shopping by promising a carousel ride if she was helpful. On the way I was realizing that not only did I not dress her up in something Halloween-ish, but we had never listened to any classic kids Halloween songs. We had a done a few fun fall things, like putting orange food coloring in the water table and covering a pumpkin with paint and stickers, but for the most part I had kept our pre-Halloween festivities minimal. No FEAR, we rocked out to the Pandora Family Halloween station on our way to the mall. 

For dinner that night I had planned a nutritious meal. I knew she was going to be eating more sugar than she needed and I felt some sort of good mom obligation to serve some vegetables and protein ahead of time to balance it out. Unfortunately, right as we were getting ready to grill up our dinner, we realized that our garage deep freeze had somehow been shut off. Nothing is more FRIGHTENING than food poisoning, so we ended up throwing out most of what we had stored away. In the moment I was about ready to cry thinking about throwing out literally weeks worth of food and freezer meals and so frustrated at having to come up with something else for us to eat for dinner. Not only had I not planned an awesome Halloween themed meal, I barely had enough lying around to make a quick dinner. But I was determined not to be SCARED by the possibility of a less than perfect meal, so we ate what we could, got our costumes on and finally headed out. Next year I plan on saying, "Remember the Halloween our freezer ruined all our food? Let's order a pizza to be safe." No more Halloween night cooking for me. 

Now for the best part of our day! We met up with some friends in our neighborhood and this was SO MUCH FUN! All the girls had a great time and looked so cute together. 

They would take off running at each house and Eva would go up to the door and say "Trick-or-Treat-ING!" Yeah, she added the -ING each time and it cracked me up. Before Eva I really didn't care much about Halloween and hadn't dressed up since I was much younger, so I really am enjoying remembering that Halloween night can be so awesome. It made me so happy to see how excited she was for everything. 

If there was an award for cutest costumes in the neighborhood it would have to go to these two party animals. We saw our Elephant friend, Lydia, at one of our stops and our Brave Lion fried, Grayson, also joined our trick or treating gang. I absolutely love small kids dressed up like animals. 

Afterwards we went back to our friends' house and let the girls party out and fill themselves up on some candy. I took the liberty of organizing and counting Eva's candy - she lucked out with this stash! There was some great candy in her bucket! She had right at 100 pieces, which should last a three year old and her parents at least a few months. 

Finally here is my Halloween flashback. For a good laugh you should check out our FIRST HALLOWEEN AS PARENTS, maybe I need to plan better for holidays :) Hopefully by the time Jensen is 2 or 3 I should have this whole Halloween parenting thing down.