Halloween 2011

Have I said this before?  I hate Halloween.

It's such a bother.

But I have to say, this year, and this neighborhood, may be changing my mind just a bit.

Our neighborhood is Cuh-RAY-zee about Halloween!  People decorate more than I do for Christmas.  There are some people that spend all month decking out their yards.  One man has robots that move and another man does a different theme every year.  This year his whole front yard was a graveyard.  I should have taken pictures because I'm certain you aren't appreciating what he does.  They have smoke machines and black lights and all kinds of stuff.  Another family does a big spook alley for everyone to go through (I must admit, I screamed.  They totally scared me).  

I guess my neighborhood is really good at being creepy.  Is that a good thing? :)

Anyway, the kids really enjoyed it and this was the first year Owen and Livy went off with older friends to trick-or-treat by themselves.  I had to take some deep breaths and Shane told me it's time to let them do that and they will be okay.  And he was right and they were...fine that is.

So here was our Halloween....

Stephanie from Lazy Town (we realize this is sooo 4 years ago, but the cool thing is there were no other Stephanie's so there!  And she looks adorable.  She kept telling us, "I don't really look that good in pink hair."  But I tend to disagree.  She pulls it off.)

Harry Potter.  Which, as you can imagine, there were plenty of.  But that just made Owen think it was even cooler.  He has this serious look in just about every picture I took of him.  He was really trying to cast a spell.

And last but not least, Bloody Mary.  You would think Olivia would like to be something pretty, but no, the last 2 Halloween's she has really wanted to be something scary, and the more creepy she looks the more she likes it.  I like that she keeps me guessing like that.  (Thanks to my sis-in-law Jody for the awesome wig.  It made the costume for sure.  Everyone loved it.  Also thanks to my mom for all the help making Olivia's and Owen's costumes.  Couldn't have done it without her.) 

Annual Shumway/Dayton kid Halloween picture.  So cute.

And here we have my kids with 3 of the Brienholt kids and 2 of the Shumway kids doing candy trading.

This handsome guy even dressed "festively", as Livy put it, for his classes today.  He's a teacher, what can you expect?  If he starts buying cardigans with pumpkins on them I will start to worry, but an orange shirt and tie I can live with. :) 

Until next year....

BOO!