Halloween

We have a bunch of really great neighbors, almost all of which have little kids and many are stay-at-home moms.  Almost everyday the last couple of months we have ended up outside one of our houses while the kids all ride bikes/toys and the moms chat.  It's usually in that long part of the afternoon when we are waiting for our husband's to come home from work and both adults and kids need some kind of distraction.  The kids all get along really great for the most part and have become really comfortable playing with each other.  So we decided to have a neighborhood halloween party before trick-or-treating started.  There were a lot of kids, a ton of food, and just plain fun.  The forecast was showing 100% chance of rain and damaging winds with threats of tornados during trick-or-treating, but thankfully the wind died down a bit and the rain was all we had to deal with, and even that wasn't bad enough to stop us (if it was, we might never go trick-or-treating in Ohio!).  It was such a fun night and like everyone says, holidays get one million times more fun with kids (even if they already are fun!  Which is saying a lot)!

These are a few of the neighbor kiddos that we partied with on Halloween.  This was taken at the beginning before the kids got too crazy and so several were not there yet and didn't make the group picture.  Lucy is not a fan of getting her picture taken and cried unless I sat and held her hand.

Lucy's costume was kind of a mix between a leopard and a cat, so we called it a kitty cat so she'd really know what it was.  It was also the first time I successfully got her to tell me what a kitty cat says. :) I love this picture below because it shows how excited she was to go trick-or-treating!  She remembered from our church trunk-or-treat activity the night before what exactly happens.  Free candy?  Lot's of it? Count her in!

 She actually stood back and smiled for the picture!

 The neighbor's who had the party just finished off their basement and they have a fun kids room there that has a slide that goes down into it from upstairs.  It's the type of thing you see on pintrest.  

 It's a really fast slide.  I was afraid Lucy might break a leg or something on it, but she didn't.

 Looking at the huge dogs in their cages.

 Checking out her loot after trick-or-treating!

 Caught them both with candy in their mouths.