Halloweens Past

Happy Halloween y’all!! I kinda love Halloween – it is a silly holiday that means pretty much nothing, so I have always tried to make it fun, lighthearted, and a family event. We always spend the evening with family (see previous post with my halloween night recipe!), make it a full day of fun, and I have been lucky enough to enjoy my kids dressing up together every year. When my kids were 3, 6, and 9, it was so much easier than now at almost 15, 12, and 9. BUT I am still going strong, it just takes lots of brainstorming, persuasion, and maybe some bribing HA! My goal with all this is that the kids have fun, see the importance of coming together as a family, and like y’all know, I love it (and they do too!) to look back through the years and see our costumes together. I do NOT spend tons of time on costumes, most are store bought and take very little planning – it may look like a lot of trouble, but honestly its just an Amazon Prime account and Pinterest HA!

I will say as a working mama, halloween would stress me out during that time. Its not exactly a national holiday so unless I had extra vacation days, I had to work and try to get off early. One year, it was looking hard to take the day off and I was contemplating not doing it and just getting home after 5. The only thing I would be missing would school pick up, which I rarely did and my kids were older- I didn’t think it mattered as much anymore. I had always tried to do pick up on halloween with scary treats in hand and be home early to get everyone ready. Well that morning, as I was dropping off the kids at school, Owen stopped as he was getting out and said “mama, I can’t wait until after school to see what you bring us like you always do for Halloween!”. Stopped me in my tracks – all this work and traditions I had created THEY REALLY NOTICED! HA! So you know that come hell or high water I took off early that day and picked them up from school with cupcakes covered in blood and spiders :). It does not have to cost a ton or take lots of effort, the smallest things can make a huge impact on their hearts and they will remember forever :). I will also say that there was one or two halloweens that I had to work all day and could not get them and guess what? WE ALL LIVED. Don’t be hard on yourself friend – you are the only one putting that pressure on yourself. Your kids just want you 🙂

Ok, if y’all will indulge me, let’s take a trip down Timehop, I mean memory lane of our halloween costumes, shall we?