Halloween

Halloween - Part 1

The kids participated in trick-or-treating once again this year.  They were so excited!  Matthew was the least afraid - nothing stopped him from running from door to door!  Kayla did very well though, too.  Nathan held his own, walking the whole way for the first hour, and then was carried between houses for the last fifteen minutes.  We live in a very populated area, but the mass of kids at each door didn't bother him!  Olivia was very content to snuggle and fall asleep in the Bjorn.

{Matthew was originally going to wear his spider costume from last year, but when this Thomas costume came up on my facebook bidding site with no bids, I happily purchased it for $3!  He was over the moon excited to wear it.}

{Kayla went as a "Butterfly Princess Fairy."  Her costume is a princess dress she bought from birthday money when she turned four, the wings are from her butterfly costume last year, and her wand is a planter decoration stick from the greenhouses that we decorated with ribbons and lace.}

{Nathan happily wore Matthew's spider costume from last year.}

 {And last but not least, the cutest little lion I've ever seen :).  Olivia wore Kayla's lion costume from her first Halloween.}

Halloween - Part 2

I grew up in a rural area, and so in order to go trick-or-treating we had to be driven to a neighbourhood.  The combination of that and my Mom's lack of desire/creativity to come up with costumes saw the beginning of the Vander Ende/Vleeming Halloween tradition.  Rather than going trick-or-treating, our moms would create candy bags (my favourite was the bag with the little packs of Chiclets!).  On Halloween, our two families would eat dinner together, and then the two dads would go and hide all of these candy bags in the shipping area of the greenhouses.  When all of the bags were hidden, us kids (the nine of us) and our moms would go to shipping.  Upon our arrival, all of the lights in shipping would be shut off so that it was pitch black.  Armed with only flashlights, we would begin hunting for the candy bags.  Once they were all found, we would head back to our house, and sort and (equally) distribute the bags.  When it was done, we would be left with an ice cream pail full of candy.  It was awesome.

When my brother, David, and his wife, Laura, and their kids moved back here from Ontario last fall, my mom thought it would be fun to start up the tradition again for her grandkids.  Last year, they loved it.  This year, they loved it even more!  Matthew and Kayla went off on their own this year, without either Jon or I to help them.  The darkness didn't bother them at all.  Nathan was quite comfortable too...he just kept forgetting to take his hand off the light of his flashlight so that he could actually look with it!  He was always so excited to run to bring the bags of candy he found to the laundry basket in the middle of shipping.  Olivia contently slept in the Bjorn this time too :)

{The kids put their costumes on for part two of Halloween.  So cute.  Kayla switched costumes to one of the new ones I had bought for 75% off at Wal-Mart that morning.  Yes, I was one of those crazy people who were at the store when it opened hoping to get a good deal.  I also bought Nathan (and Olivia) and new trick-or-treating bucket for $0.25 each because Nathan cracked his this year.  Score!}

{Where's Olivia?}

{There she is!  Seriously, so cute!}