Dailies | Halloween 2016

Another Halloween is in the books and I'm here with our annual Halloween wrap-up post!  Let's get to it.

I enjoy putting together treat bags to hand out to the trick-or-treating kiddos.  Since this is Jasper's 3rd Halloween and he's a big ole 2 year-old, I thought it was time to include him in this fun tradition.  We made some great memories!

I picked up a few different kinds of treat bags.  Jasper was quick to point out the "ghost-uhs" and "pumpahs" on them.

I like to include some non-candy prizes in the treat bags to surprise the kids with a little something extra.  I use spider rings, ghost and pumpkin erasers, miniature bubble tubes, mini notebooks, and mini maze games.

And of course, there's candy!  I include an assortment of chocolate as well as some kind of fruity mix like Nerds, Starburst, and Caramel Apple Pops (one of my personal favs).

At first, Jasper entertained himself by taking a bubble tube in and out of the candy bowl.  He wasn't yet aware that he had a big important job ahead of him!

Then he started to get the hang of it.  We had a system going: I'd hold the bag and he'd load it with goodies!

Very focused on the task at hand.

The little boxes of nerds were his favorite.  He got a kick out of shake-shake-shaking them!

His little toddler attention span lasted for maybe 15 bags.  After that, he used the candy bars as little cars and vroomed them around the table while I completed the 50 bags.

On an unseasonably warm Halloween afternoon we suited him up in his totally embarrassing yet totally adorable kangaroo costume and went outside to attempt to get a photo.  Matt recycled an old pirate costume he's had for years.  The warm weather worked out well for his bare feet and ankles!

A large amount of time was spent trying to keep his hood on his head.  He was not having it!

Got him!

Remember those baby days where you can put any matter of hat or hood on your little one's head and they don't care?  Yeah, them days are over.

We dressed him as a kangaroo since our main nickname for him is "Babyroo" which we frequently shorten to "Roo."  We found it at Target while running errands one day and it was like it had a golden aura and harp music surrounding it as we walked by - it was THE costume!

Another Halloween tradition is a viewing of Nightmare Before Christmas.  I never get tired of this movie and it's a perfect bridge into the whole holiday season.  Thanksgiving and Christmas are not that far away!

This photo was taken a few days before Halloween while we were shooting some maternity photos for friends (due just 3 weeks behind me - crazy!!).  I've seen these shirts around over the years and was stupid excited to have the opportunity to wear one.  Now that I've worn it and Halloween is over, this baby girl can be born ANY time now (I'm 37 weeks and 5 days pregnant at the time of this post)

The boring part of any holiday for a kid - having to actually sit down and eat normal food.  Jasper's dinner was a lean beef burger on a whole wheat bun with sweet potato tots.  We ate in the dining room instead of at the kitchen table so that he could have a view out of the front windows as the first of the trick-or-treaters trickled in.

The new decorations we added this year included an amazing strobe type light that projected animated flames across the front of our house.  It was a fairly inexpensive purchase from Target and we were truly shocked at the amount of light it puts out.  To go along with the flame theme, we purchased a flame lamp from the Spirit store to put in the front window.

We got lots of great comments from the kids and their parents, and that's really why we bother to decorate our home at all.  Halloween is such a fun holiday,  but sadly the whole neighborhood trick-or-treating culture has been fading year after year.  Any time we spend to help keep the magic alive for the kids is time well spent.

While handing out candy we played around with the manual setting on our new Canon G7X Mark II.  By manually dragging the shutter we can use the camera's pop-up on camera flash so that we can shoot in a darker room and still keep some light in the background.  It's still a fairly harsh light and you can tell the light is on camera, but for the convenience of using the smaller and lighter weight camera, we're pleased with the images we can get if we want to use flash.

Jasper spent most of the evening playing with his toys, but when the trick or treaters started coming his favorite thing to do was to run to the door, wave to them, say "bye bye! bye bye!" and then try desperately to slam the door in their faces while we were still trying to give out the candy!  I guess he wanted to make sure we had plenty of leftover candy.

We had to take turns wearing Dada's pirate hat.  We weren't allowed to take it off until he said so or he'd let loose with a frantic, "Hat! Hat! Hat!" until it was safely replaced on top of our heads.

Kissing is another new thing for him, so we also had to take turns kissing the joey from his pouch.

"Mama, kiss!"

We tried for one more photo with the hood but... nope!

One costume gone, another one halfway off... the night was coming to a close as the trick-or-treaters dwindled and Jasper started showing signs of being sleepy.

And because it's Halloween, going to bed fully sugared is a right of passage, so he had to eat a little more candy.  This Milky Way disappeared in one bite!

At the end of the night we had about 55 trick-or-treaters.  I was hoping for more, but I was glad that I was able to hand out all of our treat bags.  Happy Halloween, everyone!

What did you and/or your kids dress up as for Halloween?  How many trick-or-treaters did you have at your house?  Leave some comments and let me know!