Halloween '08

Halloween is normally a pretty big deal in my house. We don't do scary stuff, no spiders, bats, monsters, and definitely no witches. But when I was growing up, we didn't do anything for Halloween. It was the devil's holiday, you know.
But when I became an adult and had a kid, and developed my own personal theology about things, including Halloween, I was like, "Hey, since when does the devil get a day?? What's up with THAT?"
And what can be more fun than dressing up in costumes (LOVE it!), walking around in the cool air (LOVE it!), and CANDY (another thing that I missed out on as a kid! LOVE it!!)
So usually I make elaborate costumes for the kids (and me and Casey), and make it a big party. This year, I'm a little tired, so while I made Maddy's costume, it wasn't a big deal, and Cole wanted to wear his Spiderman costume he got for birthday (gasp! A store-bought costume!), and CJ waited WAY too long to decide what he wanted to be, so he was on his own.
I was somewhat disappointed in the not going all out, but we still had lots of fun.
We had a bunch of friends over, and the adults all dressed like crayons. (We joked that we were Family Dollar crayons, which why our labels don't say "Crayola" and why some of tops don't match our bottoms very well...) CJ had some friends over and for the first time ever took off on his own. He was excited to be on his own--in the dark.
Cole wanted to hold my hand tightly all night, which was very sweet, since he usually dashes off independently. He and I walked up to one house by ourselves, and the lady scooped up a huge handful of bubble gum and cheerfully dumped it in his bag. He was so shocked, he just stared into his open bag, and she said, "Oh, wait", and scooped up ANOTHER handful and poured it into his bag. He was speechless!
Enjoy the pictures!