Halloween pictures

Our Halloween this year is actually over before it technically even started! (I guess that's going to be true for most everyone reading this, though.) We had our ward trunk-or-treat on Thursday night. The kids had a blast of course. I wasn't too happy about it starting at 7:00 on a school night, though. (Remember that Natalie catches the bus at 6:50 am.) But despite the tired kids, it was fun to get them dressed up.



Natalie was Belle this year, thanks to my mother-in-law's amazing sewing skills. She had recently made Belle's dress for the town production of Beauty and the Beast. She made this miniature version with the leftover fabric. A lot of people were amazed at the dress. It was fun to see their reactions when I told them that Natalie's grandma made it and that we didn't buy it from the store--or from the Disney store. (I've seen Disney store dresses, and I have to say that this one is better.) One lady even asked if I made it. Bless her. :)

I put gold eyeshaddow and mascara on Natalie. I had to put this picture on so you could see her eyelashes. The camera didnt' quite capture it. They looked so beautiful!

And Kelton was a stubborn monkey, I mean, a monkey. Oh, this little boy. Does he seem to be missing something in the picture? We had a very hard time getting him to put his costume on. He wanted nothing to do with it. But he wanted to trick-or-treat. He was crying/screaming in the car when we got to the church. Finally we said, "if you want to trick-or-treat, you have to be a monkey." After getting the top part on, we didn't even try for the pants. Sometimes with an almost-three-year-old, good enough has to be good enough. And he does have shorts on, in case you are wondering...

We have a picture similar to this from when Natalie wore this costume. It's the "monkey looking at the candy picture." It cracks me up every time.

Here we are at the trunk-or-treat. Damon is a banana, in case you can't tell.

Nate passing out candy while the kids dig into their own. I was surprised by how many empty wrappers were in their buckets by the time we got home.

And here is Kelton after getting his bucket taken away because "no you can't take a giant bucket of candy to bed with you." You can't even imagine how mad he was. Well, if you know Kelton, then maybe you can. Me taking pictures of him didn't help matters any.

Funny story: A couple of years ago, I think when Natalie was two and a half, she had the same type of tantrum at bedtime. But I was adamant that she was not taking her bucket to bed. After a lot of crying, Nate finally figured out that it wasn't the candy she wanted, just the bucket itself. So we dumped out the candy into a plastic bag and gave her back the pumpkin bucket. After that she was perfectly happy. Yeah, not so much with Kelton. He wanted the candy.

The next day, Friday, Natalie got to wear her Belle dress to school. She had a lot of fun at their class Halloween party and came home with lots of fun Halloween craft stuff, and yes, more candy.

So now we enter the phase of "how much of this candy does a good parent let their small children eat?" When we just had Natalie, I think I only let her choose one peice a day. It lasted forever, which was a bit annoying. (And the sugarholic in me just can't throw good candy away. Plus, I would have been devastated if my mom had ever thrown my Halloween candy away. ) So over the years I have evolved to more of a "get it over with" attitude. As long at they eat their meals, I let them have (almost) as much of it as they want when they are done. That way it only lasts a week or two and then we don't have to deal with it anymore. And if they get sick, they will learn a good lesson--too much junk food is a bad thing. I think that's one of those things you can only learn the hard way. Anyway, I'm curious to know what everyone else does with their kids' Halloween candy...