Halloween!

What a great Halloween! I'm trying to scale back on all the "traditions" we've done in the past because honestly, the kids get overwhelmed with too much activity, it gets expensive, and it just seems to take over life. We didn't do hardly any Halloween-themed things and yet the girls didn't seem like they missed much. We made sure to have a ton of fun with Halloween day itself, and that was enough. (I have done this with summer and fall activities too. It's great to be more simple, so I'm sure I'll keep simplifying our schedules for Christmas season too.)

We got the girls dressed and ready early enough for a brief photo shoot. Once that was done, we still had 45 minutes to waste. Whoops! So we all sat down and watched a cartoon, and I might just make a note of that for next year. They calmed down quite a bit and it was much less stressful. We did the usual route, hitting up some of the homes on our street and then going to the loop that we live right next to. It was pretty cold, so we ended up stopping to get Amelia's stroller rain cover to protect her from the wind. She did great and was happy...until she wasn't. Hubby ended up bringing her home to get the car and diaper bag and then came back to pick us up. The big girls were more than ready to be done.

We headed to Red Lobster to have endless shrimp with family, and the girls got to eat delicious food in their costumes - Madeleine, a cupcake, and a little lamb. (Not bad for second hand store finds and digging in our own dress up bin!)

Josie highlights: She totally understood how this worked and was yelling, "trick or treat!" while she knocked, meaning she often had to say it 3-4 times before they actually heard her. A couple of times, she just went through the list - "Trick or treat, thank you, happy halloween!" with no breath in between.

Audrey highlights: She was so shy but desperately wanted to participate. Almost always a step or two behind Josie, she only actually said "trick or treat" about three times but did manage to have enough courage after receiving candy to say "thank you" almost every time. 

Amelia highlights: I'm sure she was wondering what we were doing, because she just stared in wonder as we went from door to door. She looked adorable in her ridiculous costume, and bonus! It was fairly warm. She didn't even need a coat.

Here are the results of our mini photo shoot.

To get them to smile, I tell them be very serious, then count to three and smile! I actually take the picture on 4 or 5, because their initial smile is usually pretty cheesy. Here is their "very serious" face.