"This is my favorite day of the year!"

All day long, this has been Ella's refrain...

"When is Dad going to be home?"

"When can I put my costume on?"

"Do we get to go trick-or-treating tonight?"

"This is my most favorite day of the year!"

Great... our daughter looks forward to the infamous pagan holiday more than Christmas. We are officially failures as parents...

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Back up one day. Thursday the anticipation was already building. The kids got to wear their costumes to preschool...

Notice that Levi and Noah are fully in character. Levi is mouth open, screaming in Tiggerific excitement. Noah is apathetic to the whole endeavor, and slouching Eeyorish against the chalkboard.

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Last night Grandma, Gina, and Tim came over and we carved pumpkins. The kids were totally excited that they got to use saws and knives, and wanted to help me cut out their designs.

Even Luke got in on the action...


Their pumpkins turned out pretty good...


I carved Luke's pumpkin for him. He told me to make the scariest one I could. So I carved the absolutely most terrifying thing I could think of on the melon...

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So tonight the long anticipated sugar rush finally arrived. My customer from Japan was in town all week for the Fuel Cell Conference, so I invited him, his wife, and daughter over to go trick-or-treating with us. The kids had a great time collecting bags full of loot, and then we headed home to get them all wound up before bed.

Mmmmmmmmm, sugar...








Paige even got Kiran a little Piglet costume so she fit in with the rest of our kids. She was adorable...

I handed out candy for a little while at our house. The observant kids who saw the "McCain-Palin" yard signs, and shouted "Vote McCain" along with "trick-or-treat"... they got an extra handful of candy.

Two girls walked past our house, maybe 10 years old. One of them came up onto the driveway while I was standing outside, but her friend stayed on the sidewalk. She told the one on the sidewalk to come up to the house, because we were home. Her friend replied "No... they are voting for the baaaaad people..."

This cranky old Republican didn't give any candy to that kid... not that she would come near this spooky old house anyways.

Happy Halloween!