This Is Halloween

 Halloween this year was awesome, it was AWESOME! If I do say so myself :)

To start, I really prepped so well and so ahead of time, I'm very impressed with how I pulled it off. My favorite part was the kids REALLY getting into it this year. They were so excited to help put decorations up, they would switch the count down each morning, they talked non stop about their costumes and going trick or treating. Here's a bit of a breakdown of how our whole Halloween went.

Costumes: We bought our costumes the last weekend of September (a bit of a gamble that everyone would still want to be what they picked come Halloween, but it worked out). We made sure to do try-ons the first week of October to make sure they did fit (and didn't need to be exchanged). We also checked to see what extras we would need for the day of.

Larry chose Mario so he could have a silly mustache and he (and the kids) love Mario so it was great...and silly. I didn't feel like dressing up and had nowhere to go in costume so I just got a couple shirts to wear the weekend of. I'm not even too sad about that either (in the future I may just pick characters I love from movies/shows and pick a favorite outfit and buy that so I'm not wasting money on a costume I'll never wear again, but I get an outfit I'll wear over and over haha)

Cara ended up being a unicorn, we were able to find a pink shirt and pant combo in her closet that went well underneath and would keep her warm enough. Her rainbow tennis shoes went so well with the outfit and would be great to walk in. We also ended up getting some jewels for her face to make it sparkle (my compromise because she wanted to have makeup on haha). It all came together so adorably perfect haha.

This pic is from the try on, not the full costume

Gwen went with Miraculous (aka ladybug). We found some warm black clothes to wear underneath. And instead of the blue wig, which she hated, we got some blue hairspray to use. She decided no on the gloves (which were fine, because they seemed a bit too small) and had to go with just regular tennis shoes that didn't fully match, but they worked for lots of walking haha. Everyone made comments on how cute she was.

Lucy decided to be a kitty cat. We found a black outfit to wear under her outfit as well as some cute black furry booties. The only thing we needed to add was some black makeup to make a nose and whiskers. She didn't love the hood, but we had some cat ear hair clips we could try. They didn't match and she ended up wearing the hood as we left the house (and then took it off for trick or treating) so no real ears for her, but everyone still knew what she was. Even being shy, she was a pretty precious kitty.

Pierce we made a little monster. I mean how could we not? Haha. He didn't need anything for his and was the absolute cutest chunkiest monster in the entire universe!!

Decorations: We went through all our decorations the last week of September so I'd know if we needed to buy anything. We also got rid of old decorations that we didn't need or won't use anymore. I did find some cute bloody window clings at Smith's that I was figuring out where we'd put them. But once I figured it out and we went back they were no longer there so I had to order some from Amazon and ended up getting a bulk pack that we only used some of haha. Cara really got into decorations this year. Her favorite thing was driving to and from school and looking out the window at everyone else's decorations. She kept asking when we were going to put ours up and when I asked her to choose between a creepy or cute thing she'd always vote the creepy one haha. 

We got things hung up the first weekend of the month and it was SO great! It didn't take nearly as long as I worried it would've and they stayed up pretty well. The girls love everything, even the freaky stuff (they asked repeatedly to see the bloody handprints even though they were scared of them at first haha). I loved how things turned out and walking through our house had little reminders of the holiday, which is exactly what I wanted.

We also went driving around our neighborhood after dinner one night (the week of Halloween) to see all the decorations lit up. It was so awesome seeing how much people get into it. Now that our neighborhood is HUGE there's plenty to see and it's such a fun tradition.

Pumpkins: We bought our pumpkins in the middle of October at Ridley's, who had quite the options and all were VERY large. We started to carve them the 26th so they'd stay "fresh" enough for the day. We only got the kids done, which is ironic since they didn't choose carve faces to put on theirs. Cara went with a unicorn set (of course) and Lucy and Gwen did pirates. Larry and I chose the It clown face for ours and he ended up doing it while I napped on Sunday (the 30th...better almost late than never, right?). They all turned out so cute!

Day of/Trick or Treating: We bought our candy from Costco in early October and then Larry ordered a bulk mix bag off Amazon as well so we knew we'd have plenty to cover us.

Unfortunately, Gwen, Lucy, and Pierce got hand, foot, and mouth this last week and I got some weird flu/nausea sickness yesterday so the day off was pretty dreary for us, but I still made sure to take the kids out and get our usual costume pic so it worked out. We just went out for about an hour (just around our circle and a few houses across the street), but the kids really seemed to like it and they definitely ended up with enough candy. They love coming home and watching our projector and handing out candy to the other kids. We ended up getting about 150 trick-or-treaters and quite a bit were what looked like high school aged kids and I love seeing them enjoy their childhood as long as possible.

Overall, our Halloween was great! The only downside is we didn't really do any activities like a pumpkin patch or corn maze or anything. We got pretty busy and it just never happened, but the kids definitely didn't realize anything was missing. That and the sickness I would've changed haha.