11/5: Tricking or Treating

Tonight I am grateful for two things. For the abundance of chocolate treats my kids scored at the ward "Trunk or Treat" and later at the neighborhood "Greet and Treat." And for the fact that said chocolate is almost gone!

Here are some pictures of our Halloween festivities this year.

I started things out by making some cupcakes. Cupcakes are all the rage now, you know, and no longer bear any resemblance to the cupcakes we made with our kids in times gone by. Now they are very fancy and often have ornate decorations on them. I didn't go to those lengths, but I did pull out the cake decorating equipment and put on the frosting that way. I learned several valuable lessons which I pass on for your benefit:

• Fancy cupcakes take much more frosting than doing it the regular way with a knife. I used two whole containers and didn't even finish frosting 1 batch!
• If you make your own frosting and your frosting isn't stiff enough the little lines from the frosting tip will disappear.
• If you make your own frosting for your fancy cupcakes and it's too stiff, you can give yourself carpel tunnel syndrome trying to squeeze that frosting out of the bag!

Rachel decided several months ago that she was going to be a black cat. She was adamant that Jenna could not also be a black cat, and Jenna was crushed. For a while she considered being a brown cat, but at the last minute Rachel relented. They were adorable. I thought the pink boots were an excellent touch.

Jared decided last year that he was going to be Wall-E, and he figured out his costume on his own. At the trunk or treat at church he also wore his roller blades and he looked pretty cool. (We put the name on his box with duct tape at the last minute at church. That's why it looks like we made the name with duct tape at the last minute.)

Jason & some of his friends decided to be characters from a video game—he got to be Yoshi. Jason was very persistent in his efforts to find parts for his costume. I still can't believe he really found a pair of green pants at goodwill, but he did!

Josh took a package of tp to the trunk or treat planning to be a mummy, but he found out what we already knew; the tp came apart too easily. Maybe he should have gotten some cheap tp and not used our good stuff.

As you can see, various costume pieces provided a lot of entertainment even when it wasn't trick or treating time.

Our neighborhood tried something different this year instead of regular trick or treating. The houses are spaced so far apart that the homeowners board decided to have everyone come set up a station in the area by the pool & clubhouse.

Some people went all out with their stations. Not us.

Some people dressed up. Not us.

(and really, as I watched the sweat drip off this guy's face onto his shirt I was pretty happy not to be wearing a mask!)

Some people spent the day dolling up their horses for the horse parade. Not us.

We did, however, carve our 5 pumpkins and take them as decorations. I was so sad because I couldn't find our pumpkin carving stuff anywhere, so we had to use paring knives, which really limited our design options. But we still had fun. Oh, the pumpkins have glow sticks in them because we weren't supposed to have flames. But the guy next to us (with the mask) had candles, and I was wishing we had ignored that rule too. Of course I might have felt differently if we had caught the borrowed hay bales on fire...

So there you have it. We survived another year of figuring out costumes, I managed to leave the candy alone before the big day but haven't been able to stay away from it since, and our floors are covered with stacks of candy. At least the kids are old enough and smart enough now to stay nice even when they eat a lot of candy. If only I were so smart...