Halloween 2014

Even though this picture is blurry, I absolutely love it.

Well, I think this might be the last of the really great Renfroeweens.  We had to beg Truman to go trick-or-treating, and he came up with his (totally AWESOME) costume about one hour before we hit our neighborhood.  He says he's staying home from now on.  *Sigh*  We beat our candy record, with a total take in of EIGHT-HUNDRED-TWENTY-FOUR pieces of candy.  If we want to beat it next year, we gotta train Brig, Mollie, and Cal to collect around 300 pieces each.  

The weather!  Oh my--it was the perfect way to end an era of going trick-or-treating as a whole family.  The temperature stayed right in the mid-fifties, with zero wind and a beautiful half-moon that kept peeking out from Halloweeny clouds. 

The whole fam, about to hit the city trunk-or-treat

We took Halloween "portraits" just before driving over to city park to go to the trunk-or-treat.  Truman's costume was maybe my favorite ever.  I suggested he be a nerd and told him to get Brigham's sweater vest.  He collected a few items of clothing and put some tape around some old glasses, but I was totally unprepared for the shock when he came upstairs from his room wearing his headgear!  I think it's a good sign of the level of your child's confidence (or guileless-ness?) when they can comfortably wear their actual orthodontic appliance in front of everyone in town (and now everyone on the World Wide Web).  

Sassy.

Brigham has been growing his hair out since March, completely because he wanted to be Anakin Skywalker for Halloween.  I have to admit, I think it's terribly handsome--though he will be getting a trim soon.  We ordered an "Anakin glove" from Amazon for him, but the rest of the costume was homemade.  He drew a scar on his right eye for the Fall festival, for his school party, and for Halloween, and he will probably be wearing his costume for any other occasion he can.

Mollie found the mouse ears in our costume bin back in September and announced she wanted to a be a grey mouse.  It was a totally easy costume to make, and my mom did a no-sew tutu for me when she stayed her a few weekends ago.  We attached her mouse tail to the tutu and she loved it.  "Mouses eat cheese for breakfast, crackers for lunch, and cheese and crackers for dinner."

Three-year-old Calvin got to wear the frog costume that Brigham wore in 2007 when he was almost four, and Mollie wore in 2001 when she was four (check out our Renfroeween page for all the costumes of years gone by).  He did not want to put it on until I convinced Mollie to wear it and hop around saying "ribbit."  Once she did that, Calvin screamed, "MY froggy!"

Whatever works.

It was a magical night for Calvin.  After about fifteen houses, trick-or-treating totally clicked in his mind, and he eagerly ran to each door, opened his bag, and said "trick-or-treat" with utter delight.  I am slightly ashamed to admit that we let him eat his fill on Halloween night--"his fill" being about fifty pieces of candy, until he was acting like a lunatic--zooming into walls, running to Mollie's candy bowl and slamming his head into it, then shaking his head back and forth really fast and laughing and crying.  Uh-oh.

I told Allen on Halloween night "This might be the best night of Calvin's life."  And then next morning, Allen announced, "This might be the worst day of our lives."  After Calvin totally crashed and we put him in bed, we sorted at least half of all the candy into the "gingerbread house" bag.  Truman, Brigham, and Mollie swapped and bartered for a good twenty minutes until Mollie had all the Whoppers (her fave), Tootsie Rolls, and Smarties, and Truman and Brig had all the KitKats and Reese's. Then I made them hide their remaining candy in (hopefully) Calvin-proof places.  When he woke up the next morning, the first words out of his mouth were, "Where's my yellow bag?"  We told him the candy was all gone and that he was done (People--he has not eaten anything that grew out of the ground for two straight days of sugary-gluttony).  Then we listened to him screech for about two hours, "NO be nice!  NO stop screaming!  Wheresmybag, wheresmybag, wheresmybag?"  Time for detox, froggy.

Star Wars, Episode VII:
Revenge of the Nerd in Biology Class on Dissection Day

I was so glad that Avery, Delaney, and Harper stopped over to show us their costumes before we all went to the city trunk-or-treat.  They made an adorable raccoon, a beautiful Cleopatra, and a totally squishable little piggie!  I love those sweeties.

We invited DeAnn to go trick-or-treating with us, too, and she came dressed as Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin, complete with horrible Billy-Bob teeth.  The kids adore DeAnn and loved it that she got to spend Halloween with us.  She came home early with Allen and Calvin, while I stayed out with the die-hards until they complained about the weight of their bags.  Ah, America.

I like hitting the city trunk-or treat, because you get to see all your friends in town, but nothing beats old-fashioned door-to-door trick-or-treating through the neighborhood, which is what we do aftwerward.  We drove to the stake center on the West side of town, then zig-zagged through the neighborhood back to our house, walking about 3.5 miles.  Did I mention before how nice the weather was?  It was so perfect!  

Me and my cute little nerdy teenager

The 6:00 geyser signals the beginning
of trunk-or-treat!

That "kick-me" sign stayed on
Truman's back the entire night!

The gang at the fire station

My awesome friend Emily--her costume was hilarious

The Maughns hooked up with us and Brigham and Preston
got to trick-or-treat together all night.

Brig and Preston, a "construction worker zombie"

Al and Cal knocking on doors

Direct quote while this photo was being snapped

The best Halloween ever!