Halloween this year

Halloween was fun this year- we have a 2-year tradition going of the grandparents coming in time for the neighborhood Halloween parade and staying for dinner.  The Ives still have a lot of trick-or-treaters at their house, so they head out after dinner, but my parents (or mom, this year... poor Dad was recovering from his turn with HFM) stay and pass out candy to our neighbors while we take the boys out.

This was the first year that Anderson chose his costume, and he wanted to be Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  He helped me look on-line and confirm that was what he wanted to be, so we ordered it a month or two ahead.  This was a good move because we totally got our money's worth out of that costume.  He wore it all the time; my only concern was it would be worn out by Halloween.

Here he is riding on Brady's Jake and the Neverland Pirate's cruiser

I really wanted to find a "Cubby" costume for Brady. As you can see, Brady would make the perfect Cubby, Jake's best friend and sidekick...

But nobody sells Cubby costumes, except Etsy.  I considered making one, but I didn't think it would be a good match for Anderson's store-bought costume.  So we compromised.  I made a play-at-home version...

And we got Brady a Tick-Tock-Croc costume for Halloween.  I figure this is probably the last year that I can get away with dressing him up as a cute animal. Here are the boys in their costumes the weekend before Halloween.

Definitely the best picture that I got of the two of them dressed up.  

This was also the first year that Anderson really cared about trick-or-treating.  He loved it! Today he told me we were going to go to Mrs. Galbraith's house (next door) and say trick-or-treat and she'll give us candy.  I told him it only works that way on Halloween.  We made it up our long street and most of the way down the next.  Brady was happy enough to go along, although he only went to a handful of front doors.  Mainly he wanted to push the wagon or snack inside of it.  My best Brady memory from this Halloween was when one neighbor brought her Halloween candy bucket to the wagon for the boys to choose and Brady reached out and took the whole bucket.  Ha! :)

Here are some pics from the parade and trick-or-treating:

Grandma didn't think Tick Tock Coc wanted to walk all that way... he agreed.

Jake, Izzy (Jake's other best friend) and Tick Tock Croc

Nannie taking Brady to see the fire engine.

Ryan didn't make it home in time for the parade, but he was just in time to style Jake's hair (similar to Jersey Shore.)

And our best attempt at a family photo

Brady refused to wear the hood for most of the night.  Within the first 10 minutes back at home he had put three different hats on... toddlers...

"I got one hundred and one hundred candies!"

These are the two boys who were told "No more candy until we get home!" Apparently you get away with more on Halloween.