Favorite Halloween Flashbacks

This was my favorite "couple" costume from the past.  We were feeling so groovy!

On this halloween as a little girl, I was dressed as a ballerina.  I was a very sporty "tomboy" as a child, but I also had a girly side.  This was my favorite costume as a child.

This was our first halloween with a child of our own.  Holidays always have a different feel after you have children. Tucker went as a lion on his first halloween.

 We went to a costume party where the theme was "80's style".  Tucker's mullet was the highlight of all costumes.

These costumes were my favorite ever.  The boys were all so proud of these pirate costumes.  They looked adorable.  They were at such fun ages.  And Bradley is the one who made them!

I hope you make fun memories today......Happy Halloween!

Trick-Or-Treating Isn't Always Such A Treat

I really don't want to sound like a Negative Nellie, but Trick-Or-Treating is my least favorite holiday tradition of any kind. 

Don't get me wrong, I like Halloween ok.  I like all the fun Fall displays.  I love to see little ones dressed in costumes.  I enjoy hay rides, costume parties, caramel apples, pumpkin carving, scarecrows and silly scary stories. 

 I like all of it.  Except trick-or-treating.

Trick-or-treating has always seemed like such a major hassle. 

An annoyance.

There has never really been any fun involved whatsoever.

Sawyer was majorly annoyed by the whole dressing up bit at this age. 

He was not digging the frog getup.

He never once put the head on.

Therefore, he looked more like Hulk gone angry than a cute little frog.

One of the most major annoyances with trick-or-treating is that costumes do not fit in car seats.

This poofy dinosaur costume that Carter was wearing this year absolutely would not buckle while he was wearing it.

Therefore, it had to be removed when we got back in the car.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Perhaps this is not so annoying if you live in a big city where you just walk around town, but here in this small town, you must drive to every house you go to.

The boys never really seemed to like it either.  This photo was taken before we even started driving all around the town to see all the Grannys.  They were all already irritated.

Not feeling it.

He also never wore these Mickey ears.

He pretty much pitched a fit for two hours while we drove around pretending to be thrilled that we were trick-or-treating.

See the mummy up there in this photo?

The wrappings stayed on for exactly one house.

One.

Then he was just a kid in a white under armour shirt and white sweat pants.

and he was not happy about it.

I am sure you are thinking, why do we even do it then?

Because, we love all our grandmothers enough that it just seems worth it when we walk in and they talk about how cute they all look.

Plus, it's getting easier each year.

The kids can buckle their own seat belts now.

Their costumes are much less cumbersome.

They don't whine and complain.

Trick-or-treating isn't interrupting nap time or bed time anymore.

And they actually like the candy.

Just when trick-or-treating becomes more of a treat, they begin to outgrown it altogether.

Now that's a mean trick!

Boys Play Dress-Up, Too

  Boys play dress-up, too.  Normal boys.  The kind of boys that play tackle and catch snakes and obsess about football.  The kind of boy that hates pink and Barbies and makeup. 

My boys.

  This is something that I did not know about boys. 

If I had given birth to girls, I would have already known to expect dress-up.  After all, I was a little girl once.  I dressed up.

Now, before you get all judgemental about the boyness of my boys, let me clarify.

My boys dress up in boy stuff.  Football players, Super heroes, Cowboys, and such as that. I do not have cross dressers. (No offense to cross dressing kid dudes, they just belong to someone else's Mama.)

My boys feel the need to get in character before they play something.  

This is what Carter slept in last night (minus the helmet), because they had been playing football earlier.

And if you play football.....you gotta wear a football uniform, of course.

All the dressing up bit started when Tucker was teensy.  I first remember him dressing up as The Crocodile Hunter when he was less than 2 years old.  He adored that show!  Every time it would come on, he would run put on anything he could find that was khaki colored. 

 He even used all of his souvenir money at Disney World a couple of years later to buy a safari outfit because he thought it looked just like the Croc Hunter's.

And it didn't stop there.  The passion for dressing up continued. 

And it multipied by three.

Pirates have always been a dress-up favorite at our house because of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  The boys love those movies!

Thankfully, my boys look to military men as heroes, so they like to dress as "Army Guys".

Sometimes, they don't dress as anything specific.  I guess Sawyer was "Blue Dude".

Star Wars characters are always popular with my boys.  I especially love this little crooked smiled Darth Vadar.  He is the opposite of evil.

All the boys loved to help me in the kitchen when they were around the ages of 2-4, but sadly, that is one of those things that didn't stick around.  Now, they just buzz to the table when the food is ready.

 The boys and some of their friends were having some sort of Super Hero adventure at the creek.

 The number one dress up outfit at our house is a football one.  And Auburn football at that.

 Sawyer was pretending to be Davy Crockett.  He was defending his fort.

 If we don't actually have the costume for the character the boys are wanting the dress up as, they just make it up.  I think maybe this was a Power Ranger?

 Sawyer and his buds dressed up at a sleepover.  Yes, boys have those, too.

Mr. Incredible....I think we own every single Super Hero costume ever created.

 Loving to dress up starts young.  This teensy pajama wearing Spiderbaby was still in a diaper.

 Cowboys and Indians....both cool to boys.

 Dress up days are coming to an end.  They already have for Tucker.  And Sawyer pretty much only dresses up as a football player these days. Carter still gets in costume, but his dress up days numbered.

 Playing dress-up is one of those things that is still a part of our every day life.

 For now.

 But one day. 

A day not far enough away.

 I will only be able to look back on the photos and remember when my boys used to play dress-up.