The Klick Family: Halloween 2011

When we lived in Havertown, we used to spend Halloween with our favorite neighbors, The Hattons. Our last Halloween in PA, we went over to their house to eat dinner before venturing out to go trick-or-treating. Our kids ran from house to house together, collecting their treats from our neighborhood friends...racing and giggling all the way. It was nice to have Chris and Amy to hang out with between fixing costumes, picking up dropped candy, and herding children. We ended the night back at The Hatton's...checking in on the Phillies game while the kids sorted through their booty. It was idealic and sweet and PERFECT!

This year was a little different. It was our kids' first Halloween outside of the quaint, homey neighborhood they knew as "home." We are currently living in an apartment complex, and since there wasn't much Halloween activity here, we decided to venture out into Dunwoody for some trick-or-treating. After a yummy pizza dinner, we went to one of our favorite neighborhoods in the area, Wyntercreek. The neighborhood was cute...most houses were tastefully/modestly decorated for the holiday, and there was a steady trickle of kids visiting the houses. Everyone was really nice, though it quickly became glaringly obvious that only families who lived in the neighborhood were trick-or-treating there. After being kindly questioned several times(by homeowners seemingly interested in meeting their new neighbors...which we were not), we began to feel a bit uncomfortable and decided to hit another venue.

I read on the internet about a neighborhood in town that puts on a BIG Halloween to-do, so we decided to give that a try. We parked (far away!) and walked (a long way!) to get to the entrance of the spooky 'hood, and as we rounded the corner we were greeted by a MOB! There were thousands of people crammed into the narrow neighborhood street! And the decorations were a bit too PG-13 for our young kiddos. We walked around a bit, trying to avoid the homeowners pretending to accidentally destroy their appendages in a blender (though we did get splashed by the gore!) and the bit-too-scary graveyard scenes...but quickly decided we should declare that idea a failure.

We trekked our way back to our car, loaded up our munchkins, and noshed on our collected goodies as we drove back to our apartment. Jeff and I felt a little sad and lonely on our drive home, as we reminisced about the "good old days" of spending holidays with friends, in a neighborhood in which we knew most everyone. But, Avery and Noel had a fun night and collected lots of candy, so the night was a success, I guess.

Here are some photos of our littles, pre-trick-or-treating...

Wendy...

...patiently waiting for Peter.

Avery was Wendy Moira Angela Darling (she says the whole name...not just "Wendy") and Noel was Peter Pan. They have both been obsessed with the story of Peter Pan for the past year or so, so these costumes were perfect for them.

Noel wouldn't look at the camera, so we suggested he have a "Kung Fu Staring Contest" with it, in an attempt to capture photos with eyes. This was the result...