A Skunk and a Sweet Pea

Halloween isn't my favorite holiday, I'll be honest. I don't really like dressing up, and then there's that whole interfering-with-my-birthday-weekend thing. But in the past few years, Halloween has become more fun... mostly because one of the best ways to make your kid even cuter is putting him in an adorable costume. Like so many things in life, Halloween just takes on a different mood when viewed through the eyes of a parent. :)

We started off the day with pumpkin pankcakes. I thought I would be creative, but maybe I shouldn't have been... they were ok, but not great. . To redeem myself with my boys, I went out for treats at the new Krispy Kreme near our house. Although they don't make any donuts there (meaning you can't get them "hot & now" much to Mark's dismay), they did have some pumpkin (decorated, not flavored) donuts that Nathan was pretty excited about. [Side note -- our music director at church gave Nathan a paper pumpkin earlier in the week, and since then, he has been insisting that all pumpkins come from "Dr. Z." Including the pumpkin donut. Even though he was with me when *I* bought it. Sigh.]

We spent the afternoon relaxing. Well, Nathan and Mark relaxed and watched football and napped, while Anneliese decided she wanted to be rocked and soothed for hours. But I still enjoyed the snuggle time with my sweet little girl, I won't lie.

Then we got the kids dressed up! Last year Nathan dressed up as a giraffe (because that's the costume I got for free online) and this year he dressed up as a skunk (because that's the costume I got from my mom) and we put Anneliese in a pea-in-a-pod costume (because that's what we got free as a hand-me-down). Do you like the trend? Frugality makes our Halloween decisions, that's for sure!

We trick-or-treated with our neighbors (they have a 1-year-old son, right in between our kids' ages) for a while. I pushed Anneliese in the stroller, but didn't get too close to any houses (again with the keeping people's fingers away). Nathan was sort of timid, but he could usually be coaxed to say trick or treat, even if it was quiet! He got tired pretty quick (being close to his bedtime didn't help), and he told us that a couple of other kids costumes were too scary! But other than that, he did great, and he liked it.

It was really muggy and warm out, though, so when we got home he was begging us to take his costume off! When we got it off, we could see why: he had been sweating buckets under there!

And he raked in some good loot for mommy and daddy! He doesn't really eat candy, but we let him have the pretzels out of his goody-pumpkin. And he also got a capri sun juice pouch from someone's house, which we'll let him drink as well. Everything else is for us!!

Happy Halloween, everyone! For more pictures of our family's day, click on Nathan the Skunk, below.

by mgoetts