Our First Halloween: Pumpkins, a Dragon, and Many Cars

This was our first Halloween in the new house. We had been warned about the number of kids/adult trick or treaters that we may encounter. We border another city that has a really early curfew (6 pm) due to crime and other issues, so those parents usually bring their children to our side...in cars. Our street was packed.

We invited B's sister and her family over to trick or treat with us and help us pass out candy. We had so much fun!

First up - the carved pumpkins. This one was mine:

B carved this one to look like it had fallen. One poor girl was traumatized until her father said "he is just sleeping." A few other children pointed out that he had fallen over. I guess B is a genius. And a sadist.

B drilled holes into this one and it looked great lit up. We left it in our backyard glowing eerily all night. Of course THAT picture didn't turn out. Side note: I hate my camera and/or the memory card that messes up half my pictures.

Here is another one that B carved. Before I went to go look at it, I asked him what kind of face he carved and he replied "a happy one." Um, well...

My pumpkin was quite disturbed to discover he had lost part of his scalp:

B's pumpkin, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind:

There is our nephew, dressed as a SCARY dragon, going to greet the early trick or treaters:

And there he is sticking his head in B's pumpkins. Did I tell you he is obsessed with pumpkins?

I wanted a picture of the pumpkins lit up at night. B wanted to ham it up with our brother-in-law, so they are pretending B is handing out candy and my brother-in-law is a child with a back problem:

After B's sister and her family returned from trick or treating, they told us some guy on the next block had a hearse. No biggie to us as he drives it every day. Apparently, though, he decked it out for Halloween and it included lights, a fog machine and scary music. You had to reach into the hearse to get your candy. Spooky!

Toward the end of the night, the kids mainly came in cars. Our street was packed:

It was a terrific night! Just when I thought we would have a ton of left over candy, the second shift came and nearly wiped us out. Luckily we were smart enough to turn out our light when we had two small bags left (100,000 bars - YUM). In case you were wondering, we bought approximately 900 pieces of candy.

Some other highlights from the night included:

• The 2 year old dressed like Michael Jackson, complete with hat, glove, socks, and sunglasses who would only say "oooh oooh" very softly under his breath.
• Seeing Mario run down our street to meet up with a kid dressed as a bicycle cop, complete with the bicycle
• Seeing Mario's father walk down the street 15 minutes later stating "I lost my Mario" only to return later to declare "I found him. He was under a giant mushroom."
• Seeing two teenagers in masks stare each other down in our walkway and asking B if he knew why they were having a "mask off"
• The mustard and ketchup costumes that we thought were crayons from across the street
• The woman that asked our in laws if she could pay them a couple of dollars to use our bathroom
• Our elderly next door neighbor running over dressed as the killer from Scream and holding a doll from The Scream painting which made noises and scared the crap out of the kids asking for candy
• Our neighbors' bat hanging from their doorway that was supposed to make noises when anyone approached, but wouldn't do anything unless he clapped so he would open the door, clap, scare the kids and then the bat would make noise
• B telling me to go pretend I was a scarecrow and scare the kids but instead I scared myself when the cornstalk touched me

Even the plants in our garden turned orange for the occasion:

Hope your Halloween was filled with candy, costumes and cute kids!