all hallows eve

october pretty much disappeared in a jiffy.
perhaps it was all the moving, job getting, birthday partying, halloweening, and everything in between that destroyed all sign of time in october, but it was one glorious blink.
we had one fine all hallows eve.
i worked in the a.m. to early afternoon- then came the trick or treat initiation of mares.
her aunt carlie and uncle porter had reserved her weeks in advance for the evening. (which really warms a mama's heart.)
porter has one arm you see- so he and carlie plan these epic costumes involving one armed characters.
year 1: ammon and the lamanites (a book of mormon story in which ammon cuts off the arms of thief lamanites to protect the kings flocks)
year 2: they went as the girl from soul surfer and the shark.
year 3: present time- jack and sally from a nightmare before christmas

since mares was joining their entourage (and we couldn't find her costumes i purchased last year....) i decided to dress mares as something from the nightmare before christmas too. 

the dog, zero, was an obvious choice.
the night before i slaved my life away to make this costume- while i was making it mary was loving it.
okay i didn't literally slave away-
so i didn't feel too terrible when she hated it on halloween.
the dog collar choke out because she didn't want to wear the head is really a plausible reason to despise something.
in response to such costume disdain we allowed her to make a costume swap for the trick-or-treating.
a living dog instead of a ghost dog.
dale insisted we paint her face- and honestly it was the cutest thing ever; but she hated it, and i kept having premonitions of her being horrified of halloween on account of a forced face paint.
it didn't help that she was already petrified of porter and carlie because of their face paint...
a double fear whammy in the name of abnormality.
eventually she forgave them for giving her the creeps and embraced them in fear love once again.
we all headed up to traverse mountain area to do some trick-or-treating with some of carlie's adorable cousins.
dale and i "dressed" up.... he was a hunter or lumberjack and i a rabbit- sorry offspring you're parents are lame.

then there was the main halloween event. 

living zero with favorite aunt jack

 my hell this is my new reason why i love halloween

 dying here from cuteness overload

 this kind kid crew chauffeured mary around doorsteps.

when they were up at one house we overheard porter (aka tron) say this is our dog

he and gibs (aka batman) were extra kind to mary the whole time we were out. 

porter would help her at pretty much every house- made me love that kid. 

 if costumed kids aren't cute enough then let's just have them hold hands. 

 because one picture of such a scene is not enough.

 photo bombing puppy.... 

 mares grew partial to uncle sally by evenings end.

 those teeny legs needed a rest from tricking 

 blurred puppy on photo paper

initiation was a success.

there is nothing quite as spectacular as a 2 year old dressed up walking door to door saying "tank you" and "trick or treat" over and over again. a real spectacle. 

i must say mares "tank you" is quite possibly the most adorable bit of human language ever spoken.  

i tried to take her pumpkin basket from her and empty out some of the candy so it would be lighter; she was not having that. 

she was in kid heaven. 

on the drive home she started nodding off with a sucker pressed to her lips- that's when you know success was achieved. 

hope all of your halloween's were perfect in every way. 

happy belated all hallows eve folks!