halloween, spooky fun!

lucky me. all my bribing with marshmallows surely paid off and coen gladly wore his lion costume! wes doubted my tactics 3 weeks before halloween as i taunted coen with a bowl on ghost shaped mallows. in fact, the headpiece to his costume became known as his "treat hat" and he would bring it to me and say, "more, mass-me-yos?" to be honest, he was so distracted by all the other kids and candy, he probably would have worn the headpiece even without all the prep work. i refuse to believe that though, it was totally all me and all my efforts. totally. this halloween was WAY more fun for all of us. last year, coen was in bed at 7 and had no clue anything was going on. but not this year. our little lion got many hours of wear out of his adorable costume. we happened to be out of town visiting friends over halloween weekend. on friday night we got to tag along to a corporate office halloween trick-or-treating extravaganza! it was a total mad house, but the kids had a blast. mission accomplished! saturday, we got to drop coen off with nana for a few hours and head out to a halloween birthday celebration for my brother and geri. i can't tell you how much fun i had greasing wes' hair back! i think he was afraid it would never go back to normal.

matt and cortney were a hit as juno and paulie!

we had a good time, and coen enjoyed his "party" with nana too! on sunday morning coen wore his costume to church and all the kids paraded through service. way. too. cute. after a big lunch and a nap, he was back in his costume and ready for his first ever trick-or-treat experience. it

was extra special because he got to spend the evening with his cousin's, bella & gianna, and our dear friends, grace & jane. he slowly got the concept of knocking on the door, but didn't understand why he couldn't go inside. i tried to stop him most of the time, but at one house when a kitty cat ran by, he was in the house and up the stairs. once again, it's a good thing he's cute. overall coen's first real halloween experience was a hit. funny thing is, i put all my efforts into making sure he enjoyed all the festivities, but at the end of the night he was asleep and we were feasting on a bucket of "fun size" treats. score, us!