Before

Darth, Sylvester, and Green Power Ranger (Z chose to be the same thing he was last year! It was fantastic.)

After

Checking out the booty. We had a great night. It was the first time I got to go trick-or-treating with the kids. I'm usually stuck at home handing out candy. The weather was fabulous--considering we had a blizzard 3 days ago--warm with lots of leaves to crunch through. My brother met up with us and joined the festivities, and Buddy experienced the joy of barking at kids wearing weird costumes.

Now I'll let you in on a dark family secret: we buy our kids' candy off of them. I think I've explained this before, but I get tired of those piles of candy lingering on into December. When we get back from trick-or-treating, we have our kids paw sort through the sugar bounty and keep whatever they want. Really, we don't force them to give anything up. But the lure of 10 cents per item is fairly strong, and without fail the kids wind up keeping a handful of candy and "selling" the rest to us. I like teaching them that a little candy is OK, and there's value in making healthy choices. Stupid? Maybe. But in one week we'll be done with our Halloween candy and that is music to my ears.