Happy Halloween!

I finished the layout above this morning :) Hope you have a great Halloween! Here is the journaling on the layout:

It is easy as an adult to get wrapped up in the “work” of Halloween. Making sure the kids have everything they need for their costumes, decorating the house, getting and carving pumpkins, planning and volunteering at the school Halloween parties, making sure I have enough candy for the trick-or-treaters, helping the kids get ready, our annual photo shoot and finally taking them out for the night. Sometimes it can be hard to fit everything in with our busy schedule! But today as I think about the Halloween to-do list, I am taking a minute to remember back to when Halloween was all about fun, magic and freedom.

I loved Halloween when I was a kid, much the way my kids do now! Every year, Billy Rebey and I would go trick-or-treating together. Some years, Connie and my mom would take us to different neighborhoods to see what kinds of candy they gave away – my mom likes to tell the story of how at one house I asked the lady not to put the treat in the sack because “my mom wants to know what I got” and some years we would run around Billy’s neighborhood in a frenzied race from house to house! I went as all sorts of things – a girl ghost, an old woman and an Indian squaw being the most memorable.

It was a day when you didn’t worry about someone snatching your kids, so sometimes Billy and I got to go by ourselves. What fun we had – it was such an adventure to be out after dark racing through the yards with our pillowcases! I can still hear the sound of leaves crunching under our feet and feel the cool air on my cheeks. When we had had our fill or our moms made us come home, we would dump out all our candy and sort through the treasures! Counting and sorting by type then picking out our favorites – mine was always Health candy bars and bull’s-eye caramels. Yum! Mom always wanted my butterfingers and Dad always had the snickers. We would eventually go to bed completely worn out from our excitement and running but also completely happy knowing there was a stash of candy waiting for us the next day!

I am happy I have children, because without them I am afraid there would not be much joy in Halloween but I am one of the lucky ones who can relive my childhood memories while I help my children make their own.