Are ya chicken?!

People have their different view of Halloween. I have always thought, 'kids in adorable little get ups and a night of candy, what's not to like about that?!' Now that I have a child who was just old enough to enjoy the holiday with me, I enjoyed the day ten times more than I ever had before.

We got the kids in their costumes around four that evening so we could take pictures while they still looked good. Rhode did not appreciate his first experience with makeup, what a man! Though he did like his costume... a little too much actually. The minute I put him in the cozy little thing, he was out. We tried our hardest to keep him awake to get a few pictures, but as you can see, he was a little out of it.

Scarlet did finally get to wear her chicken costume. We tried it out the day before at a Halloween puppet show at the library. She was not a big fan of the hood. I realized it really wouldn't be much of a chicken costume without the hood so we improvised.

The red mohawk actually stayed spiked all night long. It was quite the hair feat.

I wanted to get some pictures of the kids together so we set them on the hammock. Scarlet had already scored a box of Dots but I took them back to hold them for her during the picture. That didn't go over so well.

I gave her the box back and her life improved dramatically.

We started out the evening trick or treating at some of our neighbor's homes. Scarlet was giddy as we walked across the street to the first house. She knocked on the door and waited... and waited. Yeah, they weren't home. Turn your porch lights off people! So there was first disappointment of the night. We headed next door to a house absolutely covered from head to toe in Halloween decor. She pulled me along as fast as I would walk and headed all by herself up to the door. Unfortunately, the neighbors had also set up a motion sensor. So when Scarlet stepped bravely up to the front door, the door let out a horrific scream. As if that wasn't terrifying enough, our neighbor answered the door in a white mask and black hood. And to top it all off, he was handing out candy with a skeleton claw. She did not let go of my leg for a long time after that.

Jon tried to get her to look at the camera, but she couldn't look away from the guy!

We then made our way over to the trunk or treat. Our ward puts on a pretty good one. There was a blow up haunted house, tons of homemade root beer, and cars galore. Scarlet had a huge bag of candy by the end. And, keeping his great baby status, Rhode looked all cuddly and cozy while he slept soundly the whole time.

She spent most of the evening staring at her collection.

We have quite a few kids in our neighborhood so I bought a huge bowl of candy and we spent the rest of the evening at home trying to get rid of it. Scarlet insisted on handing out the candy to all trick or treaters. She even played favorites. Every now and again, someone would get two candies if Scarlet deemed them worthy. Occasionally, one of the trick or treaters would only get a small tootsie roll from her. She wasn't very fair but she was very cute.

We had only one sad note on the evening. Near the end of our candy passing out, an older group of kids came to the door. There was a 13 year old girl, a boy about the same age and then a few kids that were about 9 and 10. We could hear the boy swearing up and down the street. When they came to the door they asked if we were handing out candy. Jon told them we were, but we didn't appreciate the language. The boy apologized. Then the girl started asking about our kids and then says, 'I have a three year old at home, but it's past her bedtime.' I was so shocked I had no idea what to say. They left shortly after. That poor girl. What a world we live in.

But, to end on a more positive note, the evening was a complete success and we have been living on candy ever since!