halloween was Super!

We spent Halloween trick-or-treating with Captain America and the Green Lantern.



We went trick-or-treating around our new neighborhood.




Oma spent the night after William's birthday party and came trick-or-treating with us.

We also ran into Griffin, Henry's favorite school friend. They trick-or-treated for an entire block together. It was really sweet to see their excitement at first finding each other in the dark and then filling their candy bags together. {I don't have pictures because I sent my camera home with Patrick who took a cold and tired Green Lantern back home early.}

It was a beautiful night; chilly but not raining or freezing!
After we picked Henry up from school, we did some speed pumpkin carving so we could have jack-o-lanterns before the trick-or-treaters came.












Also, for breakfast we made chocolate chip pancakes in spooky colors.

Blue, green and orange pancakes - pretty scary, right? These look disgusting I think, especially in pictures. But they were gobbled right up.
My very favorite part of Halloween this year has been my favorite since I was a little girl; the coming back home part. The part where you come inside your cozy, warm, brightly lit house, thaw out fingers and toes and dump your bucket full of sugared earnings on the carpet. I like the counting and sorting that ensues. I like the piles and the sorting from most favorite {king size Kit Kats} to least favorite {butterscotch candy disks}. It's an unofficial tally of the success of Halloween. And this Halloween delivered. One house gave only king size bars {and offered cold beers to the parents} and in only about an hour buckets were full and warm memories made. The nightcap on the festivities was waiting for trick-or-treaters to come to our house. Each time the door bell would ring, the boys would drop whatever they were doing and dash to the door. At first, we came with making sure the boys offered the candy and were polite. But they caught on fast and after a few times, we let them take over door duty. We'd sit in the living room and smile as they'd make the mad dash to the door and then laugh out loud when we'd hear Henry say things like, "Hi Cowboy", or "Nice lightsaber". And as the night wore on the the traffic continued, we panicked about running out of candy and being that house on the street that has to close down early. We brainstormed what kinds of things we could start throwing into the bucket if we ran out completely. I think spare toothbrushes, pencils and Kleenex made the list. Luckily for the trick-or-treaters that night, we didn't run out!
I found myself so grateful once again for these two boys and for their contagious joy.