Halloween Weekend 2009

"I want some cake!" ~Jonathan

The cake. (No, we weren't very nice.)


The big moment. Think she's spotted us yet?

Opening presents. Some were gag gifts, some were good gifts.

"Lightning McQueen" ~aka Jonathan Merriss

"Baby Dino" ~aka Jacob Merriss

"Rawr! Bring on the candy!!"

Trick-Or-Treat!

Jonathan's candy stash.

Jacob's candy stash.

Halloween at our house was awesome this year! I actually put up a few decorations. I've never done that before--but I thought, Why not make it fun for the kiddos? We didn't do a whole lot. I got a Happy Halloween door mat to go outside the front door; we put a glow-in-the dark door sticker for the front door; and I hung a few ghosts from our trees. We got together with my sister-in-law, Kristin, earlier in the month to make a bunch of Halloween goodies. I'm not sure what the boys loved more--the goodies or playing with Aunt Kristin and Uncle Marshall's pooch, Chilton.

On October 29, my mom turned 50. I could not let that birthday go by without doing something special for her. So we threw her a surprise party! She'd already had an over-the-hill party for her 40th, but I didn't really remember too much from that one (not sure why--just can't seem to remember it) so I decided to give her another one. My dad took her out for dinner that night. While he was gone, I let myself and the rest of our party guests (just a handful of family members) into their house and we set up their kitchen with a few decorations. When they came home about 30-45 minutes later, we "hid" back toward their entry way. The first thing she saw was her cake with the decorations and her presents, then as she came further in toward the light switch she finally saw all of us. She was surprised, and that was my goal.

Jonathan dressed as Lightning McQueen (from the Cars movie) this year, and Jacob was a dinosaur. They were both so cute, and were actually pretty well behaved for most of the evening. The festivities started early. Our church does a Fall Festival every year for all the kiddos, and I'm not real wild about getting the boys out when it's really dark. So we left about 5:00 Halloween night and took the boys trick-or-treating. We usually stick to our relatives' homes--we don't take the kids to anyone's home that we don't know well. After that we headed to the church for the Fall Festival fun. Jacob is still too young to really get into all the action; he pretty much hung around Mommy, who was working the popcorn machine all night. Jonathan, however, had a blast. Daddy took him around to all the games, which he got candy for playing. His favorite was a balloon popping game. By the end of the night, both boys had cleaned up pretty well. Despite his sugar high, even Jonathan crashed pretty quickly after we got home. Definitely looking forward to next year, when both the boys will be into it!

Now, bring on Thanksgiving!