Halloween 2015

Here it is... The annual installment of the the Garcia Family Halloween blog post (about a week late). Almost identical to last year's, this year also included a trip to the fall festival at Sutherland Farms, reverse trick-or-treating with Eva's class at school, and having fun with friends on Halloween night. 

We were invited to trick-or-treat this year with friends on what can only be described as a street right out of a made for TV movie. The street is blocked off at each end to traffic and the kids are free to run from house to house collecting candy while the adults stop to warm themselves by fire pits and collect adult beverages. It was awesome! And we continue to be thankful for such cool friends! 

In case it's not obvious, I was a bearded lady and Magan was my strong man. Maia wanted to be a witch. And Eva wanted to be a "princess fairy butterfly". Nailed it! 

Hasta...

Halloween 2014

The Garcia Halloween celebrations turned into a jam-packed week long spectacular this year. It started the weekend before Halloween with costume birthday party and continued all week to include "reverse trick-or-treating" with school (the school kids made and left treat bags for all of the school's neighbors), a library event (it was actually pretty cool), and a Halloween night party at our house with lots of friends. 

The girls got some good use of their costumes this year! Maia wanted to be Pocahontas and Eva wanted to be a butterfly for a second year in a row. I was Bob Ross (you know, the happy little trees painter) and Maia decided Magan should be a cave girl. There was no family theme at all...

I continue to feel extremely lucky to be able to experience these type of events with my girls. I know that time goes fast and soon enough my girls will running off with their friends in inappropriate costumes (not if I have anything to say about it!) and I will be at home giving candy to everybody else's dressed up kids. I keep getting asked when I plan to go back to work, and some days I ask myself that same question (not everyday at home is a great day!), but it is things like Halloween celebrations that remind I'm not in that big of a hurry. Getting these moments with my family really is awesome. 

Hasta...

Halloween 2013

This is the first Halloween that I have trick-or-treated in years. This means that this is the first time I have taken my girls trick-or-treating EVER. This is a BIG deal! I LOVE Halloween!

For the past 10+ years I have been at work on Halloween well past any reasonable hour for trick-or-treating with young children or even passing out candy to everybody else's dressed up kids. In case you hadn't noticed, Halloween always falls on the last day of the month and in my previous career (prior to this stay at home Daddy business), the end of the month was also considered a BIG deal. So I have been looking forward to this particular holiday for months.





The girls were butterflies (Maia's choice). And Magan was nice enough to be my cowboy's accessory cow.  (Yes, there were several "teet" jokes as the night went on and fondling of the udders).


Eva started out the day in a pumpkin costume for story time at the library but felt more adventurous by the time trick-or-treating came around.



We met up with some friends and went around several blocks before allowing the girls to eat way more candy for dinner then we should have. We also allowed them to pick out 2 pieces of candy before "The Great Pumpkin" took the rest in the middle of the night and left them a treat in exchange. Let's be honest, Magan and I dropped the ball on the treat shopping so "The Great Pumpkin" left them each $1 so they could buy their own treat at a later date. An awesome parenting idea gone slightly wrong. We tried.



We finished out the evening with cocktails with our 2 favorite sets of neighbors. Thanks Donna/Jim/Mike and Chad/Jamie for the hospitality! Now I know what I have been missing out on all these years!



P.S.  A special thank you to the pumpkin thieves for helping with the trash pickup for the week.

Hasta...