HAYRIDE TRICK-OR-TREATING

So, the kids have trick-or-treated downtown at the shops, at Boo at the Zoo, and at a couple of Trunk-or-Treat events, but they've never gone door-to-door. We figured they were too young, and didn't think it was done much anymore anyway, at least not around here (in 6 Halloweens in the 'Burg, we've never had even a SINGLE trick-or-treater come to our house). So we planned to stay home and just hang out. But then we received an invite from the Hancocks to join their hayride into one of the 3 neighborhoods that DOES participate in trick-or-treating, and it was completely awesome! The kids certainly didn't need any more candy (we have a cauldron full, between the zoo and school festivities), but I knew they'd love the hayride, even if they decided that going door-to-door wasn't fun (or too tiring, or too cold, etc.) Poor Jay had to stay home and study/write, so I tried to take some good pictures out there in the dark for him...

Traveling down the road on a little trailer topped with hay bales!

Coltin (dressed as "Super Why! The Super Reader!"), James, and Cora at their very first ever trick-or-treat house (glow sticks courtesy of Dawn - pure genius for telling our munchkins apart from the crowd)! By the second house they had it all figured out with their "Trick-or-Treat", "May I have a candy please?", and "Tank you! Happy Halloween!"

Happy little trick-or-treaters back on the trailer. James and Coltin became pros at jumping down off the trailer as soon as Stirlin pulled the ATV to a stop, running up to a house, and running back to the trailer as fast as their little legs would carry them! Cora and Emma were far slower... Cora because she opened at least every other piece of candy to eat, and Emma because she's not even 2 yet (though she did awesome with her "Trick-or-Treat!" too)

This is basically what James looked like all night: a Cheshire Cat blur across lawns!

The whole group (minus Stirlin who was driving behind me, with Emma on his lap). We borrowed Coltin and Emma's grandparents for the night. Thank goodness they were there, since Shay Shay retrieved a stray James on multiple occasions...

This was the best/most decorated house. The kids thought all the blow-ups were super cool, though the front door with it's scary lights and skulls and music was a bit much for them.

My kids were so hopped up on sugar that they didn't want to go home. Cora tried to take Coltin's bike for a spin, but she was too short to really work the pedals, so Emma pushed her around for a bit. I think I pried them out of there around 8:45pm and Cora was still singing herself to sleep well past 9:30pm.

 We're hoping this becomes an annual tradition because it was AWESOME! Best idea ever to trick-or-treat from your own personal hayride!! And we have to take Jay next year, since he'll be graduated and all :-)

EL HALLOWEEN

Like last year, we had an EL Halloween Party after the Haunted Hallways judging. Before things even got rolling though, just after 8:00am, our Laboratory Director (the woman who leads the Environmental Lab) came into my office telling me she had a song to sing. If you know Beth, you know she is the Queen of Karaoke. You also know that she stands no taller than 5' 5" and is a beautiful southern belle, normally dressed and coiffed the part. To see her dressed as Gene Simmons (complete with wig, makeup, cape, chains, and spikes) pretty much had me spitting my coffee at my computer screen. I seriously LOVE this holiday!

Our Technical Director is in there...

The lady dressed as the spider kill won Scariest Costume. Obviously. She won last year too, when she came dressed as a Titanic Ghost.

HALLOWEEN LINDSAYS: 2008-2012

2008: Miss Conception and the Pageant Announcer

2009: A couple of Pirates and their Parrot

2010: Gardener with a Flowering Plant, Ladybug, and Garden Gnome

2011: Gru, a couple of Minions, and Dr. Nefario from Despicable Me

2012: Alice, a flamingo croquet stick, the Mad Hatter, and the Cheshire Cat

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM CORA AND JAMES!

(Cora is her usual happy morning self, excited for the holiday. James is still not happy I even woke him up...)

HAUNTED HALLWAYS 2012

We only had about half as many teams/branches participate this year, but there were still plenty of Haunted Hallways at work to take the kids exploring tonight. Especially since James had a sneak preview while he was hanging in my office for a couple hours on Monday, and told Sissy all about it. And Daddy was busy with 3 hours of Tuesday night classes and deserved a quiet house for a change. Once again, the kids weren't scared of anything. In fact, the scariest stuff make them laugh. Go figure...

Drinking lemonade while exploring - we had take out in the break room before we set out wandering the halls

That's my daughter, playing with a cockroach. Sometimes I wonder if we're even related...

My branch won for "Most Appetizing" hallway. The sign reads "Halloween Hall of Temptation", and we all happily trick-or-treated the walls once judging was complete!

HEART OF GOLD

 I took James to Jackson this morning for his 5th and final echocardiogram (he had two while in the hospital after being diagnosed with Kawasaki Disease, one follow-up at 2-weeks, and another follow-up at 6-months). That's right, he's in the clear and doesn't have to go in for any further re-checks (usually, if a heart issue were to arise, it would happen in the first 3-4 weeks, but we had a couple follow-ups just to be sure our baby boy is OK). The whole morning took longer than planned due to two accidents that caused long back-ups and re-routing on our way to Jackson, then 3.5 hours at the hospital while we waited for testing and the results. James was a great sport the whole time though, watching Dreamworks Spooky Stories on the way there (a VERY entertaining compilation of short Halloween-themed stories, especially the Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space -  you can buy it via Amazon, but we just rented it from RedBox), playing and reading in the waiting room (side note: Room on the Broom is a really great Halloween book), and being super patient with the nurses, echo tech, and doctors. The only thing he didn't cooperate with was lying down for the echo, so they did it with him sitting up (which was no problem - the tech said she'd rather do it that way and have it take a little longer than upset him by forcing him to lay down). Totally worth it to find out that his heart is perfect!

Being a pirate with one of the paper head circumference tapes (and wearing the required hospital arm band)

By the time we got out of there it was 12:30pm and we were both starving. There was a Wendy's across the street, and I promised James a cake pop if he ate all his chicken nuggets before we got to Starbucks (mama needed more coffee, and the nearest and only Starbucks in town was 15 minutes away). Poor kid barely lasted 5 minutes on the highway though (I leaned over to snap this picture while parked in the Starbucks drivethru - even the sound of me ordering cake pops didn't wake him up)

 And just for record keeping purposes, he weighed in at 37.5 lbs fully clothed, was 41" tall with his shoes on, blood pressure was 115/60, and oxygen level was >99%.

PUT YOUR FEET UP

She's like a man - she needs to put her feet up and bring along some entertainment when she's planning to be in there a while...

2012 PARTY-GOERS

The flamingo (Cora) and the Cheshire Cat (James) testing out the photo booth before the party-goers arrived. We left the gate up because we didn't want any of the little ones getting into the breakables on the stove or bumping heads on the brick.

Starting with the Costume Contest winners... 

Most Unique: Steampunk family (Cari, Mike, Bridger, and Jacob). They also won  for Best Theme, but we gave the prize to the next in line to spread the wealth, since our prizes of candy and Halloween accessories are well sought after...

Best Theme was then actually a tie. Best Theme #1: Salt and Pepper and their little chef (Olivia, Lauchlin, and Grady)

Best Theme #2: Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat (Violet and Mikey). Tan Mom (Christy) came in second place for Most Unique.

Most Cumbersome: the "fat" bunny (William, who is Azure's uncle visiting from out of town, thus he was dubbed "Uncle Bunny" for the evening). Pictured here with a unicorn (Amy), a bear (Seamus), a witch (Azure), and a skyscraper (Jason), who also had an honorable mention for Most Unique. Since the bunny had to rush home with the bear, the tied Best Theme groups each took a bag of candy home.

Wendy (Christina), Tinkerbell (Lauren), Captain Hook (Al), and Peter Pan (Will)

The flamingo joined the Penguin (Sandy), because birds of a feather stick together

A jester (Oliver), a tiger (Rohan), and the zookeeper (Keri)

The Candy Family: M&Ms (Ned and Mary Beth), a Hersey's Kiss (John), and a Hersey Bar (David)

The Superheroes: Elastagirl (Sophie), Clark Kent/Superman (Alex), Nacho Libre (Leo), and Spiderman (Manu)

And just for fun, here's an outtake of us trying to recreate our pose from Boo at the Zoo. Cora was for some reason not in the mood to be hung upside down, and in rebelling, grabbed my hem and hoisted. Luckily, I was wearing tights AND shorts underneath, and Jay was able to help me out...

Thanks again everyone, we highly enjoyed your creativity this year!

4TH "ANNUAL" HALLOWEEN BASH

There are a few parties we look forward to all year long: our kids' birthday parties, Turducken, 4th of July, and our (now annual) Halloween Bash (previously held in 2007, 2008, and 2011 - we had a couple busy years with newborns in the house in 2009 and 2010...). We had a great time again this year and we're so appreciative of our friends' enthusiastic costume efforts and culinary skills. As usual, I took a LOT of photos (80, to be exact, and I would have had lots more had I not had children or infants or food or drink in my hand most of the night), so here are about a quarter of those, with captions as deemed necessary by me. If you missed it this year, we sure hope you can come next year! We strive to get bigger and better with experience, and throwing this party is a LOT of fun!

S'mores favors and kiddie favors

I didn't think to take photos of all the Halloween-themed food contest entries, but there was Mummy Brie (which was the contest winner - absolutely delicious, and prepared by ex-chef Mikey), pumpkin bread, pumpkin cobbler, pumpkin seeds, apple dip, Petrified Leprechaun Vomit, cheese eyeballs, Zombie Gut Dip, Worm Burgers, Swamp Dip, Snot Dip, Brain Dip, Spicy Blood Dip, Pumpkin Poo, Bat Wings, Severed Fingers, Dirt Cups, Lady Fingers, biscuits, Mummy Dogs, Dragon Eyes, and cupcakes (of course). 

Manu and James attacking the graveyard ghosts with glow sticks

Swinging by the bonfire

Steampunk Mike and Steampunk Cari enjoying the flames (and brews)

Nacho Libre (Leo) striking a pose

Cora loving on Mr. Mike

Clark Kent (Alex) and Mary Beth deep in conversation. I had to post it because I love the look on John's face!

Steampunk Jacob trying to look serious. Not an easy task with chocolate pudding on your lips!

Ned tickling the giggles out of John

Wendy (Christina) and her sleepy little Tinkerbell

The Brewmasters (who provided 5 gallons of a blood-red homebrew for the party)

Homebrew is awesome. Definitely looking forward to Jay finishing school so that he has more time for extracurricular activities such as brewing and photography!

Peter Pan (Will) and Tinkerbell (Lauren) taking a break

Curious George (Violet) was all smiles, all night long

Cheers!

Sweet as candy David proving to me that Cora isn't the only climber in town

Steampunks in the graveyard

The Mad Hatter. I mean, the Cheshire Cat.

And of course, we forced everyone to pose in front of the mantel (our photobooth this year). Those pictures will be in the next post (since there are about a dozen of them)!