Halloween Fun

I have to admit, before having kids I was not a big fan of Halloween. I hate scary movies, stay away from anything that's "haunted" and I have NO willpower when there is a bucket of chocolate staring me in the face. However, that all changed after the little ones came along (except for the willpower thing... still working on that one). Joey and Sam love Halloween and I love seeing their excitement. Joey is getting a little more daring with the scary stuff... until he had a nightmare about a pumpkin coming alive. Sam is all about dressing up and lucky for him, I'm the queen of stocking up on costumes so he had a nice selection to choose from. All in all, it was a great Halloween!

On to a few pictures...

Joey's school library had a Halloween contest where kids and their parents decorate pumpkins based on their favorite character in a book. Joey picked Zane from Ninjago (shocker, right?). It ended up being a little more work than I anticipated but I was happy with how it turned out and Joey thought it was pretty cool.

We also kept with our annual tradition of carving pumpkins. The kids help Dad clean them out, Dad carves the pumpkins and I take the pictures. :) Sam was totally grossed out at first but then got brave and just dug in and got the job done. 

Another annual tradition of ours is Trick-or-Treating at Scheels so we started our night off there. The kids filled up their buckets as we walked around their all-time favorite store. Before leaving, we took a ride on the ferris wheel... the highlight of Sam's night.

Woody and our Ninja

Sam's smile makes me smile. He was so happy to get to ride on the big wheel.

Joey had fun too but had trick-or-treating on his mind.

After Scheels, we stopped by Grandma Shayne's restaurant to show her the kids' costumes and then headed home to trick-or-treat around the neighborhood. Sam made it to 5 houses before telling me he had too much candy in his bucket and needed to go home. True story. So, he and I went home to hand out candy and Josh and Joey hit up a few more streets in our neighborhood. 

Batdog! I know some people may see this as animal abuse but I couldn't resist and in my defense, I only made him wear it for a few minutes while I tried to get this picture (and gave him a good treat afterwords so it's all good).