Halloween 2007

Tinkerbell, Wendy, Peter Pan, and Captain Hook

(Elizabeth, Rachel, Oliver, and Tristan)

Daniel and I took all the kids trick-or-treating. They all loved it, but is was especially funny to see Lizzy get into it for the first time. We only sent her up to a few houses (the ones with relatively safe paths up to the doors), and she thought it was so great. After she got her treat, though, she kept plopping herself down right on people's porches to investigate her bucket. She also kept trying to give people treats back from her bucket - she would do little trades. The rest of the time she sat in the wagon while the other kids went up, and searched through her basket for suspicious things to throw out. Things that were iffy ended up being placed in the bottom of the wagon, and then things that were really weird looking were tossed out onto the sidewalk.

At one house all the kids got a little microwave popcorn package, which I thought was a cute idea, but Lizzy had very mixed feelings about it. She didn't want to completely abandon it (she threw it out of the wagon a few times but then wanted it back), but she was not comfortable with it being in her bucket, either, so it ended up with a special spot on the bench across from her. Once in a while she would change her mind and give it a chance back in her bucket, but it never stayed there for long.

When we got back, I put Lizzy to bed while Daniel organized a candy sorting/choosing party. I wasn't involved, but I could hear from the other room that great fun was being had by all. All the buckets were dumped and then sorted into different kinds of candy. Then each of the kids got to choose 20 pieces (they had already chosen 10 from their Halloween party, so they got to choose 10 more from trick-or-treating).

I love that they accept this with no fuss. On our way home from our ward party last Friday, I kind of casually mentioned that when they got home they could choose out 10 and then we'd put the rest in the give-away bucket. The boys each said one thing, like 'oh, we don't get to keep it all?', and I just said, 'What!? Do you guys think it would be healthy to eat all this candy?' Then they were immediately on my side, saying things like, 'Oh, yeah, you're totally right, Mom. We forgot about that. That would be really bad. Of course we shouldn't eat this much.' Tristan even went so far as to say that if they ate that much candy all of their teeth would probably fall out. I told him probably not all (I don't want him to think later that he's been lied too) but it still wouldn't be good for his teeth.

I'm sure it won't always be that easy.

Halloween pictures: