Halloween...

I don't LOVE Halloween. We don't celebrate Satan. It's not some special night where we are mean. We don't play tricks on people. We don't do scary, gory, or anything like that. My kids are kids and they like to play dress-up. I am a mother and I enjoy making them outfits. We drive around and show our family and a few friends our costumes and they give us candy for our efforts! This is pretty much Halloween for us. It is my least favorite holiday, but I remember being a kid and my Mom making our costumes(she was awesome and creative!!). For them it's fun! So, every year I will keep making them costumes, we will keep showing our family and they will(hopefully) keep giving us...I mean the kids...the kids candy...  

Our Beautiful Butterfly...She changed her mind several times between fairy, ballerina and butterfly(the one that stuck). As I was making it, I kept thinking, "this is AWESOME!!!, I would totally have loved this!!, and how cool is this!" I can't say that she was as excited, but she did like it...

Our Stealthy Ninja...Poor Miles, I have to say, his costume was a "fail". I did pretty good winging his outfit until I got to his hood and for some reason I "spaced". The more I would sew on it the more it would look like hijab. Try as I might, I just couldn't fix it. It didn't help that half way through the night he abandoned his swords and was just wearing his outfit. Finally I had him just leave his hood in the car. Sorry Bub, I do better next year!!!

Our Jessie the Cowgirl...I was beyond excited when Tenley told me she wanted to be Jessie from Toy Story. I was a little worried that she would want a more grown-up costume this year. It wasn't perfect but I thought it came together and was really cute!

Our Indian Princess...I saw this "twist" of an Indian costume. With Madison's coloring, I thought she would be too cute. Not everyone knew that she was supposed to be an Indian, but she liked it, so I'm happy...

Our Little Lady Bug...This is definitely the smallest costume I've made and I couldn't be more proud of the way it turned out! Even though she doesn't look super happy here, she was adorable!!

This is a really nice man that Goose works with, they are always so excited to see us come...

Aunt Shirley gave each of the kids a fist full of candy...

We stopped in to see Grandma and Granddad, he didn't care to be in the picture...

Aunt Darlene and Uncle Nelson gave the kids their own bucket each, with a couple of pieces of candy, a huge jar of peaches(Miles' favorite) and some granola bars. I was excited for something other than candy!

Kathy and Don are so sweet to our kids! They are the ones that let our kids swim in their pool all summer, anytime we want. They are always ready with goodies for the kids. They are very much like adopted grandparents.

Cara and I tried to get a great...

...good...decent...okay picture...

...who were we kidding? With Steve and Nancy's being our last stop, the kids being hyped up on sugar and exhausted at the same time. We settled for being able to see most of their faces!! Small victories people, small victories!!

Steve and Nancy were festive this year(the kids LOVED it)...and now I get to say they go together like eggs and bacon!!!!!

and that's a wrap. I'm going to take a nice long nap...5 costumes, 8 houses, 1 very long night! WHEW!!!!!