Halloween

I love Camden's octopus costume.  The best part is the purple sweatshirt (minus the eyes & mouth) can be worn for a few more years!  She received many comments about being the "cutest costume" people saw this year.

Since we were traveling over the weekend, I had some mother's guilt.  She was going to miss her school party and our town trick-or-treating.  She was very excited about trick-or-treating this year and I was not sure about my decision to go East.  Then I remembered that she is 3 years old and will not care in the long-term.  So we packed her costume and I decided whereever we were, we would do something.

On Sunday afternoon we would be in Pittsburgh and Elizabeth's church was having their "Truck or Treat" event.  The weather was very cold and we arrived back in town just for the last hour of the event.  Only about 10 cars were out...and they only had the bottom of the barrel candy left. 

Camden loved it regardless and got a bag full of dum-dums and tootsie rolls.  I decided we would go to another town near us when we got home on Monday and get some real trick-or-treating done.

Later that night, however, I called Kevin and learned that his Uncle Art had passed away.  The viewing would be Monday night in Illinois.  Camden and I had to drive the rest of the way home on Monday morning, then pick up Kevin and drive 2 more hours to the funeral home.  Poor Camden.  It's so good that she travels so well...another long day in the car seat.  I decided to pack her costume and, regardless of where we were at 7pm on Monday night, we would stop and knock on a few doors.

Turns out that the small town of Paxton (and specifically the neighborhood where the funeral home was) is BIG TIME into trick-or-treating.  We pulled up and the neighbor was setting up his kettle korn tent to pass out bagfuls to the kids.  He stopped us and told us to come by after the viewing for a bag and a full-size candy bar.  He said last year he handed out over 650 bars!

We went inside for a while and then Camden and I stepped out.  The neighbor said we could use his playset for a bit to give Camden some play time.

We made plans with Kevin's cousins to meet back up and walk the neighborhood with their kids.  When Camden and I got back to the funeral home after grabbing some dinner for the three of us, the neighborhood was in full swing.  It was already getting a little late, so Kevin told us to go ahead and trick-or-treat while he went back to the viewing.  It was a perfect plan!  We were done trick-or-treating by the time the cousins arrived...and Kevin got good visit time with his family.

She scored so much candy!  I think we only went to 20 or so houses and she had 2 buckets of goodies...many full-sized treats.  A wonderful blessing around a sad circumstance.

Of course, on Tuesday night, we made one final stop at GaGa's (who saved some extra treats for baby girl).

We literally will be eating candy until Easter, at least...