HALLOWEEN

Halloween decorations around here are pretty good. Last weekend the three of us walked to the grocery store on Sunday morning and Allie got to meet Casper.

We also had some cute Halloween decorations at our house, thanks to my mom.

The guys who live below us own our house, and they pulled out their Halloween decorations on the afternoon of Halloween. As you can see, it's pretty extensive.

They invited us to join them for Halloween, which I'd been warned would have literally hundreds of trick-or-treaters. Even so, I figured we'd sit on the stoop, they'd sit on theirs, and we'd give out lots of candy together. Not quite. It was crazy. Kids lined up starting at about five o'clock, and going strong until nine o'clock. There were some great costumes, and I didn't get nearly as many (or as many good) pictures as I should have. In this photo, kind of hard to see, but on the right and in the front are the best Super Mario Brothers of the evening. (Best because of their great moustaches.)

This kid had one of the most imaginative costumes of the evening. He's an eagle. It's kind of hard to tell in the photo, but this costume was fantastic, and homemade.

We had a total of about fifteen adults in our group (friends of our downstairs neighbors) who gave out candy, who took turns controlling the spooky parts of the yard (there was a live zombie, a mechanical Freddie Krueger, and a spider that we'd drop over the kids' heads), and partook in the adult party under the portico. We had a lot of fun.

Another photo of the line for candy. I gave out candy for about an hour, and I'm not kidding, I went through bowl after bowl after bowl. One piece per kid (until the very end, when we realized we'd end up with a surplus of candy). Based on how much candy we had on hand to start the night, we estimate we had more than 500 kids. (We also had some dogs, and some of them in costume, so Allie graciously donated some of her dog treats for us to share with the festive pooches.)

Great Panda costume, or greatest Panda costume?

My personal favorite, the Donut Girl. I might borrow this costume idea for me to wear next year.

I take it back, I think this mother-daughter duo might have been my personal favorite. I wish the Wicked Queen would have stood up for the photo, because her costume (and makeup) were utterly fantastic. (And Snow White was no slouch either.)

This is some of our group, under the portico during a lull in the action. We had food, drink, and dessert to sustain us through the night. (That's Cowboy Brad in the center.)

And this is our scary spider, which the guy behind me could raise and lower on a wire. On the far right of the photo you can see Freddie Krueger's arm. The live zombie was off on the left (unpictured).

So that's a wrap on this year's Halloween, definitely the biggest we've ever experienced.