best halloween ever...

According to the boys, this was the "best Halloween ever".

As their mommy, I couldn't agree more. It was by far the most exciting one I've ever experienced and my days of trick or treating go way back. Thank goodness we decided to make this a tradition b/c it would be hard to beat! We started off the evening at Scare on the Square and then met up w/some of our friends at Mike and Amy's for a yummy{kid friendly} dinner. After dinner, an attempt at a group picture, in which only 4 of the 9 participated..

and a few rides around the backyard,

we were all ready to take off on the hayride. Keller was a little uncertain about the trailer but, the minute we started moving, he was all smiles.

Before we made it to the corner, the kids were already screaming about how much fun they were having, how awesome it was to be on a real hayride and asking if we could stay on it for a "really long time".

Thanks to Mike, who is just as big of a kid as the rest, made sure we had the most festive trailer in town. He spent part of his day decorating it w/lights, pumpkins and a flashing strobe light on the back.

He then drove us around the neighborhood, letting us off every now and then to trick or treat.

After about 2 hours of that and bags overflowing w/ridiculous amounts of candy, the kids were ready to take a break, eat some candy and drive around to look at Halloween decorations.

I didn't realize until that night that some people really go all out for trick-or-treaters. One particular house we stumbled upon had every inflatable known to man in their front yard and a big screen showing a movie for the kids.

It was such a fun little cul-de-sac so we spent a few minutes chatting w/other trick-or-treaters and even ran into a few of Keller's friends from school. After that, we decided to call it a night...and what a night it was. Thank you to our wonderful friends who made it such a fun night for all of us. We are twice blessed by having great kids for our children to grow up with as well as wonderful parents who have become special friends....and an extra big thanks to Mike for being our chauffeur for the night. Little did you know that by doing that, you'd get hired nominated to do Keller's birthday party hayride!