The Mario Brothers

Would you still love me even if I told you I didn't make-a-one of my kids' Halloween costumes this year? With 4 kids, I found buying costumes suddenly very appealing, especially when said costumes were only $10-$15 a piece and there was no way I could make any of them for that cheap. So I caved. But points for making it another year as a themed family?

In case you can't tell, we are:

Luigi.

Mario.

Yoshi.

A controller.

And Jeff and I were Player 1 and Player 2. As Jeff pointed out, this would have been an awesome costume to announce a pregnancy with "Awaiting Player 3" written on my belly, so you can be certain there's not another baby brewing or you know I woulda jumped on that bandwagon. 

We went to a trunk or treat at the high school Halloween weekend. 

With our Bess buddies.

I was able to go to Eli's school party on Halloween. It's so fun to see him in his element and get to know the kids in his class a little bit better. We made Oreo spiders and Reese's witches brooms.

Here are my favorite highlights from trick-or-treating:

Kids: "Trick or Treat!"

Lady: "Take a couple!"

Eli: "A couple means 2 guys. Everybody take 2."

*Eli is a major rule follower. I had told them ahead of time that on houses that leave bowls on their front porch with a sign that says "Take One," we only take one even though no one is watching. He then specified on every house that was an exception to the rule like when people told them to take a handful or a couple to make sure he and his brothers weren't over-taking their share. 

The older boys ran up to the door while Lincoln attempted to break into his first piece of candy. Lincoln slowly walked to the door and then stood there focused on the candy already in his hand while the lady at the door patiently held her door open for him with a giant bowl of candy thrust in his direction. Lincoln slowly tore away at the candy wrapper, and without looking, robotically handed the lady at the door his scraps of trash, one by one. He then popped his candy in his mouth, and without ever actually taking a candy from the house, he turned around and got back in the stroller. So basically he trick or treated for a trash can. 

After an hour and a half of trick-or-treating, Carson's pumpkin was near the top. At one house, with much amusement, Carson announced to the man at the door, "I'M GOING TO HAVE TO START PUTTING CANDY IN MY HAT!"

Their costumes provided motivation for them as whenever one of them would get tired, it just took one "Let's-a-go!" and they were at it again. They also spent the entire night jumping off rocks and electrical boxes shouting "Yaaahooooo!"

Whenever people asked the kids if they were having fun, Eli always answered, "Of course!" People seemed to get a kick out of that response. 

The boys were so good trick or treating. The older boys were patient to wait for Lincoln and Lincoln won the endurance race as he lasted just as long as the older boys. We had a really great time working the hills for some free candy!