So long, Halloween

Halloween is not my favorite "holiday" (holiday in quotes because I don't really even consider it to be a holiday). My first experience trick or treating wasn't until 8th grade, and even then I didn't dress up, just went with some friends and had my whole bag of candy stolen by a delinquent teenager. Pitiful. When I was little we did dress up occasionally and went to church "Halleluja Partys" which were always fun, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything - maybe I didn't even know what I was actually missing. But after I had kids I decided, hesitantly, to partake in the normal halloween activities of costume buying and trick or treating. *Just a little background information :)

I had been telling Davon, who is 12, that he was too old to go begging for candy this year. He seemed fine with that and planned to stay home and pass out our candy while hubs and I were out with the younger kids. So I bought 3 bags of candy. Davon informed me an hour before we were to begin that he was going with friends to trick or treat... whatever. So my huge bowl of candy sat on my counter most of the night, until we got back and could pass it out - only 4 kids came by that point, what a waste. Oh well.

Dathan threw up at 5:00 and laid lethargically on the couch for about an hour before it was time to get ready. But just like I thought, nothing was going to keep him from free candy. Here's Jaden, my niece & Dathan.

Observations: It was like a ghost town for the first 10 minutes of walking, besides the little boy next door there wasn't a soul in sight. I started to wonder if I had missed the memo of Halloween being cancelled.
Before we sent the kids up to a door we reminded them to say "trick or treat" and "thank you"... EVERY house. Jaden would usually say trick or treat but forgot the thank you about 1/2 the time. So I would ask him why he didn't say it, to which he replied with "Ugh, I missed out on the thank-you! That's okay mom". Yeah, it's okay because you still got your candy, but it's not okay if the people are like me and get irritated when snot-nosed kids don't have manners.
I do NOT like it when people invite my young children in their house - this happened 3 or 4 times last night! Granted, all of them were older and probably grandparents themselves, but it's just weird. We would rush up from our post at the end of a driveway to supervise the interaction between these strangers and our boys. This just isn't the day in age when you can ask strange little kids into your home, sorry.
Seriously, why would someone dress their 6 or 7 year old little girl in what I call a hooker outfit?? This girl's sequin dress was so short that any wrong move would've revealed her little Dora panties and she could barely walk with her knee-high, heeled black boots. Not to mention you could see her shaking from the cold. Some people - I'll just never understand.

All in all it was a good night... no more puking, no runaway kids and most importantly a huge stash of candy for ME! I'm glad this day only comes around once a year and also that I won't be pregnant for it ever again! At least I burned a few calories before I pigged out on mini candy bars.