I was planning to only go a short way with the fam, and then take Tyler and Mark back home to greet the trick-or-treaters, but Tyler was having so much fun trick-or-treating, and I was having so much fun watching him, that I didn’t want to part ways. We just left the bucket with a “please take one” sign at our house.

The kids loved trick-or-treating!

I learned from Whitney to have our Halloween dinner on a separate night. This was the best idea ever! It gave me time to take photos of each child and get out the door while there was still daylight, which in turn got us home earlier so the kids went to bed at a decent time. I will definitely be repeating this plan!

So Tuesday night, we had yummy mummies, orange mashed potatoes (added a sweet potato), homemade applesauce, and instead of witch’s brew this time, I made Orange Julius, which was excellent!

The Fam - Halloween 2012

I planned to make these jack o’ lantern quesadillas for snacks after school, but got sidetracked, so we ate them for dinner along with our quick and easy spaghetti.

Mark: Angry Bird

He wore Andrew’s Angry Bird shirt and did not like wearing a hat, so we ditched that.

Tyler: The Hulk

Tyler was so into being The Hulk! He is really good at fiercely yelling, “Hulk! Smash!”

Andrew: Captain America

The mask was tough to see through, but the shield was the bomb!

Adam: Thor

Amy: Black Cat

Natalie: Egyptian

Jon’s costume was totally last minute. Since the older boys were all Avengers, he decided on the fly to be Tony Stark (Iron Man). He resurrected the circular light that Andrew used for Iron Man the past several years and taped it to his chest under a white t-shirt. He added a suit jacket, sunglasses, and Tony’s signature peace sign. The funny thing is, he got so many comments on it! And his costume got cooler as the night got darker. I posed as “Pepper” for the pics, then changed into jeans and running shoes for trick-or-treating.

Jon: Tony Stark  Jen: Pepper

The kids’ costumes were figured out ahead of time and were low-key, which made things do-able for me.

Waiting for the school Halloween Parade to start

After picking up Andrew from school and feeding the boys lunch, we stopped by Day’s Market to buy Halloween candy. We were in a rush to get Andrew to the school Halloween parade (and he was very anxious to be in his very first parade). After I returned the shopping cart, I couldn’t find my keys! I asked Andrew to start praying, and he immediately said, “Mom, I think your keys fell out on the ground.” Sure enough, there they were on the ground near the cart return. Phew!

We got Andrew there on time, I signed up for parent-teacher conferences, put makeup on Amy, and then waited forever for the parade to begin. Luckily, I sat next to several friends, so had a good time chatting. Mark, however, did not enjoy waiting in the extremely noisy gym and got pretty fussy. As soon as we saw all 4 kids, we walked out, picked up Andrew from class and drove home. We survived!

As soon as the other kids got home from school and snacked, I took them out one by one for pics in their costumes. (I had taken Tyler and Andrew’s earlier that day.)

When we had enough of the door-to-door, we hopped in the truck and drove to see our neighbors’ pumpkins (another tradition). Then we came back home, surveyed the candy, ate our fill, brushed teeth like mad, and then went to bed.

It was a great Halloween!