Halloween

Halloween was always one of my favorite holidays growing up… I have to admit it was mainly because my mom would let me wear makeup … and lets face it there is nothing cooler than lipstick war paint (I liked to be “Pocahontas”).
My family had a few Halloween traditions. The first one obviously involved food… my mom would always make pumpkin stew right before we went trick or treating. Let me explain, pumpkin stew is just normal beef stew but baked inside a pumpkin (which obviously makes it better)… my mom would make sure to pick the most perfect pumpkin in the patch/grocery store so it would look fantastic and hold enough stew for the family. My little brother and I would always plot to steal the pumpkin to carve it, I am not sure what the appeal was but we never failed to come up with some obscure plan. We always carved jack o lanterns a few nights before Halloween, in reality we should have done this the day before Halloween so our pumpkins weren’t mushy blobs but it was just too exciting to wait. Trick or treating was always a huge deal at our house, we would plot our route several days in advance to ensure we maximized our time. After getting home we would engage in the wonderful tradition of trading candy. I am sure you all participated tradition… we would pour our candy out on the living room floor (obviously in separate corners) and start sorting. After taking a careful inventory we evaluated what we needed to trade for. Since 99% of you engaged in similar practices in your own home I am sure you are aware of how this ritual works. You decide what you need, and what you are willing to part with. Some candies are more valuable than others, for example regular Tootsie Rolls are basically worthless, you try to pawn those off on the little kids who don’t know the difference between candy and rubber posing as candy. In our house full size Reeses were the most valuable candy, followed by unusual fun size candy bars (100 Grands, Whatchamacallit, FastBreak, etc), and then gummy LifeSavers, LemonHeads, M&Ms (peanut butter M&Ms fit in the unusual candy category), Skittles, Kit Kats, fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls, Snickers, MilkWays, and 3 Musketeers. Inevitably our trading ended with someone crying, and my parents taking their “fee” (Almond Joy and Reeses). We would spend the next few weeks trading candy and trying to save it so when the other siblings rand out we would be able to chuckle and pretend to offer them a piece of candy (or an empty wrapper). Oh the good old days.
This Halloween Brian and I had the opportunity to go trick or treating with our 3 year old niece, her cousins and grandpa. It was a funny experience, I have to admit it is different to be on the adult side of trick or treating. Our niece is an interesting little girl, she has a unique way of… engaging others. Just to give you an idea, by the end of the night she had Brian carrying her, me carrying her bucket of candy, and Brian’s dad carrying her hot chocolate… she is a pretty amazing little person.

Brian was a Utah fan for Halloween, surprisingly he got some angry looks from our fellow trick or treaters... I was a BYU fan... obviously the better choice.

Alayna and her glow in the dark vampire teeth.. she through they were pretty funny

trick or treating

Before trick or treating... Diana made these extra cute little costumes... isnt she a pro?!