The garden gnome and the hot dog

Halloween has been so much fun this year. Elijah has had a couple different opportunities to celebrate and it has been such fun to watch his eyes light up.



As expected, Samson wore his costume for a total of about five minutes. That's the way it has always been with Elijah up till this year, too.



Cutest little hot dog I've ever seen!



I wish I could share photos of the Halloween party we took Elijah to last week. We met a local heart group (Parents For Heart) at Chuck E. Cheese's and played games, ate pizza and watched Chuck dance on stage. It felt incredible to chat with other parents of children with heart conditions. Anyway, all of the photos include children whose parents I did not ask for permission to be on our blog, so no photos. It's a bummer because they turned out really cute.

Today my friend Jess and I took Elijah and Sam to the mall for trick-or-treating (Dan was working). HE LOVED IT. And everyone thought he was just the cutest little garden gnome. He got really tired after a while and the mall got packed beyond my liking, so we headed out after about an hour.



Taking a break! Trick-or-treating is tiring!



Sam seemed to enjoy all of the commotion. It was the only part of his day when he wasn't fussing. I didn't put his costume on for this part of our day. I know, bad mom.



Elijah loved rummaging through his loot.



I let him go crazy with candy after eating dinner. I put Sammy to bed and came down to this:



And tonight we have had more trick-or-treaters at our house than ever! I love it! I had one kid say to me, "Potatoes are yummy." ??? Elijah has been standing in the background whenever someone rings the doorbell and saying, "TRICK-OR-TREAT! THANK YOU!" This last time someone was at the door, he said, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Silly boy.

I hope you all had wonderful weekends!