The Venable Family: Halloween 2012

I was so excited to get to dress up my TWO kids this year for Halloween! Knowing that it will probably be one of the last years that I will have any say over Makenna's costume, I made the most of it and went with a theme for the four of us: Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Makenna was of course Goldilocks, Kyler was Baby Bear, Toby was Papa Bear, and I was Mama Bear.

But before I get ahead of myself...We began with our yearly pumpkin carving the day before Halloween (Maybe next year we will actually get pumpkins carved earlier...I won't hold my breath about that though). I had planted pumpkins in our home garden this year and I planted them a bit late, so we had to buy a pumpkin after all. But, the small green one that Wyatt carved was from our garden:-)

Makenna still didn't much care for the mess of scooping out the pumpkin guts.

Wyatt was there to carve pumpkins with us this year and, unlike Makenna, he had SOOO much fun scooping out the pumpkin guts.

Daddy helped to finish the scooping and do the carving of the pumpkins.

And here is our finished jack-o-lantern behind bars:-)

Then on Halloween day we got all dressed and first went to daddy's work to show off the kids. Next year we will know to go earlier because they actually had trick-or-treating at his work, which was such a wonderful idea. Then we met our friends in downtown Redlands for trick-or-treating at the businesses there. We had done this last year and had really enjoyed it. Last year Makenna had to be held the whole time and gladly allowed her friend to say trick-or-treat while she reaped the benefits without saying anything. This year however she was prepared and knew exactly what to do. She boldly went up to the people with the candy, held up her bucket, and said "trick-or-treat"! She and her friend enjoyed having each other there.

And who can forget the two little ones. They watched sisters go up and get candy and schemed with each other about how they will totally be able to get more candy then their sisters next Halloween.

After downtown Redlands we headed back home for a quick bite to eat before heading out one more time to Wyatt's house for...well...of course...more trick-or treating!! We went around Wyatt's neighborhood because the houses on our street don't even bother handing out candy because there isn't enough kids that come by to bother.

They got sooo much candy by the end of the night. And it was Makenna's first experience with trick-or-treating around houses. It was a little difficult to get across the concept of only going up to the doors that had their lights on. She proudly said trick-or-treat for her and for Wyatt when they went up to the doors. It was so funny because Wyatt wouldn't say trick-or-treat but would hold up his basket and say "put in here":-) We were so glad that they invited us to trick-or-treat with them! Since it was late, we stopped by my mom and Jim's house to show off our costumes and then headed on home to get the kiddos in bed.

And one would think that is enough Halloween for anyone, but of course the next weekend we had a Halloween party. I mean, we really get use out of our costumes:-)