Halloween

With all of the excitement of Election Day and after our weekend with the stomach virus, I almost forgot to post about our Halloween fun! The girls looked so cute in their costumes (I forgot my camera to upload pics, but I will soon, I promise!)! After picking them up from school, we rushed home to get all of our "gear" on and get ready for the neighborhood parade and trick-or-treating. Our neighborhood has an awesome tradition (a tradition that many neighborhoods around the area have tried to copy, but ours is still the best) that has been taking place ever since I was a little girl living in the same neighborhood. On Halloween night, all the kids and parents gather together (and a local firetruck) and have a costume parade down ones street and then we have a pizza party for the kids before the trick-or-treating begins. This year was special because it addition to the tradition, one of our neighbors (whose family has had a band for YEARS) and his dad were dressed like the Blues Brothers along with his twin 6 year old sons - so cute!!! Well, next thing we know we hear loud music coming from one area of the cul-de-sac and notice that they have broken into a scene from the Blues Brothers and are dancing and lip-syncing to the music. It was so much fun and the kids all had a ball dancing around with them to the loud music. While I told this neighbor that he had now raised the bar for next year, there was a true purpose to this performance. The elementary school that is adjacent to our neighborhood (where all the kids go and ours will go) is in the process of re-building a community playground. They had to tear the old one down last year due to it being un-safe and falling apart. They've had big fundraising events and have almost raised all of the money, so this little impromptu performance was done in an effort to raise more money for the playground through tips! What a great idea! I'm not sure how much they raised, but I saw just about everyone putting money in the tip buckets, so maybe they raised the final amount!

After the parade and party in the neighborhood, we then took off on our Halloween pimped out golf cart. I found battery powered lights in purple and orange that we hung on the golf cart to look like a spider on the top. It was too cute! The girls thought it was so cool! We made it down 2 streets and decided it was too cold for Anna (who had on short sleeves) and so we dropped her and my parents off at the house and Sam, Mary Mac, and I continued on to more houses for more candy (just what we needed). Our final stop was to one of Mary Mac's friends in the neighborhood who was also having a party for the kids with blow-up bouncy things, more pizza, candy, etc. You get the picture!!! We then went home and were able to spend a little time with Sam's sister and her triplets (yes, that is 3 six year olds - 2 girls, 1 boy) who had just come in town for the weekend for Alabama's Homecoming. It was a great night and I am so thankful that we are able to provide such fun for our family and spend it together!

By the way, we had big plans to take the girls to the Homecoming festivities on Saturday, but Anna woke us up in the middle of Friday night with the stomach virus! YUCK! Hopefully we are all done that now!