The Best Halloween

Halloween hasn’t held the same magic and excitement for me since the day I grew too old for people to load up my pillowcase with sweets at their doorstep simply because I was a cute little kid in a makeshift costume. This year however, I got to re-live the excitement in the shadow of my little Cinderella!

Rachel absolutely loves princesses this year and it was a great treat to put on her Cinderella dress made for her by Grandma Becky and experience her first real trick-or-treating! Our whole family dressed up for the day, Adam as a leprechaun, Emily as an Egyptian, Rachel as Cinderella, and Carter as Charlie Brown (the hair squiggle wasn’t great but remember, this is a 7 month old squirmy little boy I was working on here!).  We met Adam at work and started by trick-or-treating on Main Street in Logan. The first few stores went pretty well and Rachel was very polite to always say thank-you, but then she discovered the power of the words “trick-or-treat”! Soon she was off running from one store to the next and later that night from house to house saying “More treats, more treats!”  If fact, it’s a whole week later now and she still points at random houses and will ask me if we can trick-or-treats.  She got so good at saying Happy Halloween too as only a child with a two year old lisp can.

       We didn’t trick-or-treat longer than an hour that night, but her bucket was filled and she was a mile high from the excitements of the day. At home we got to have a little fun with our tick-or-treaters by putting a baby monitor in one of our jack-o-lanterns so we could talk to them as they came up to get candy. We also used glow sticks in paper towel rolls to make glowing eyes for our bushes and of course we had our fog machine going to create a fun atmosphere in our front yard. The most fun part by far however was not in the giving or receiving of treats that night, but was doing it all together. There was a time or two when we were out with Rachel and Carter trick-or-treating when I felt the need to hurry back so we could give out our treats, but we were reminded of the talk that Uctdorf gave in the last October conference when he said we need to slow down and enjoy what is around us. It was the time spent with my dear family, not the treats, that made this Halloween my favorite yet!