Uber Halloween

I know, I am probably one of thousands of proud mommies posting "super cute" Halloween pictures of their kids for people who neither 1) care.  Nor, 2) think the kids are nearly as cute as the mom does.  I admit it, and I'm okay with that.

But first, a confession.  My kids were not going to go trick-or-treating.  Not out of some deep idealistic objection to All Hallows Eve...although a bit of that is present and I wish a bigger deal was made out of today's Feast of All Saints as opposed to a commercialized hype over the day of preparation for the feast...but out of sheer laziness.  Yes, you read that right.  Go ahead and put my "Loser Mom of the Year" award in the mail.

But lets cut through the shock and ask "Why?".  My kindergartener was getting a party at school, so she would be pacified.  Other than that I have a recently turned 3 year old, a 1.5 year old and a 2 month old.  Logic told me that I should not lose sleep making costumes and energy dragging the kids around town when they wouldn't remember the event in a year.  Besides, I knew that I would end up hiding the candy from them and eating it all myself.  The real moment of triumph?  When I realized that we live miles out in the country and therefore no trick-or-treaters would be knocking on our door - the night could pass as any other night.  I realized that I might actually pull this ruse off!

But it turns out that my youngest sister did not want to go trick-or-treating alone and my mom offered to take my kids along too.  What?  You're going to attempt the feat that I was too cowardly to do - take my kids and give me an evening alone with my husband???  Suddenly neither laziness or deep idealistic objections were anywhere to be found!  The only obstacle was pulling together costumes in less than 24 hours, but thanks to our dress-up bin and Uncle Paul's recent gift (see below) things came together pretty well.  So without further ado:

Being 5, Agnes is quite old enough to pick her own costume (as she informed me.)  Luckily she picked something that 1) we could pull together and 2) wasn't too scandalous for boring old mom to agree to.  Nice classic cowgirl.

While Uncle Paul (Elijah's Godfather) was in Germany he picked up this sweet Lederhosen for his beloved Godson/nephew.  It took a while to convince Elijah that his pockets were actually the ones he has his hands in in the picture - he was insistent that the front flap was actually the pockets, which as you can imagine made the costume considerably more controversial.

And Josephine (Sophie), the little pumpkin, refused to look at the camera.  Oh well.  She wasn't thrilled about the whole situation, especially (what she considered to be) her stupid hat.  But then a few trick-or-treaters showed up at mom's house before they got out the door and mom pulled out the candy bowl.  Suddenly Sophie's whining was gone and she was intently interested.  Much more agreeable about the prospects of the evening you'd say.  However, while more excited about going out when she realized candy would be involved, she quickly put together the following logic:
1. We're going out to get candy.
2. Yet, you have a whole bowl of candy here.
3.  Therefore, it seems like we might be adding some unnecessary steps...

I didn't get any pictures of the baby, because he was sleeping.  Which allowed me to get pictures of the big kids.  But he was wearing a jack-o-lantern onesie that matched his big sis (thanks for the hand-me-down Mrs. Lay!!)

So, good news - I'm not a complete loser mom.  And, the kids will remember this Halloween if only because I took pictures that will live on.  And, most importantly, I now have lots of candy to hide from the kids and eat myself.  Don't worry, I'll let them have the kinds that I don't like.  :)