A "Spooky" Time

Halloween is one of my most favorite holidays, as you can probably imagine. Growing up with Halloween as my birthday was awesome. Candy, presents, a party and trick-or-treating. What could be better? Halloween as a twenty-something, still fun as I was pretty much guaranteed a party, but somewhere along the way, my actual "day" got very complicated to celebrate. However, Halloween with kids is the best combination ever. I get to celebrate this special holiday with my children and my husband as a family, for now. Since Halloween this year fell on a Monday, we attended a couple of different celebrations the weekend prior. The preschool had a Halloween party on Friday afternoon. Now that is an experience. A whole bunch of toddlers hyped up on candy running around the preschool. It was pretty cute to see all of the kids in their costumes though. Here are our kids ... a fairy and a pea in the pod.

On Saturday night, the Davis family invited us to their Halloween Extravaganza. They really do know how to throw a party. A live band, great food and tons of play areas for kids of all ages. Madilyn loved going down the slide that night. As a matter of fact, at one point, she just dove down head first. Our little daredevil. Here are our costumes that evening ... the hippie family. (I guess we didn't get Aiden and I in any photos.)

On Halloween night, we traveled over to my parents house so they could see the kids in their costumes and to enjoy a quick bowl of chili before heading out to trick-or-treat. Somehow Josh and our friend Paige decided sometime back in early September that our families would dress up togehter in theme. It was decided that we would be the Flintstone family and the Rubbles. It was perfect. Josh and I were Fred and Wilma. Jason and Paige were Betty and Barney. Madi was Pebbles and Keaton was Bam-Bam. That just left Aiden. I decided that he should be Dino the Dinosaur. Since they didn't make a baby Dino costume, I converted a pet costume to fit him instead. We all looked so great! Madi's favorite part of the evening was after we arrived back to the Raetz house and she "helped" Jason pass out the candy. She kept telling the kids "Appy Alloween!" Here are some photos from that night. Yabba dabba doo!