This year a friend suggested a joint trick-or-treating gig, and never one to decline a social invite, I agreed. Our kids (who’ve known each other since babyhood) were thrilled, and the deal was sealed. We marched over there around 6:00-ish (on a side-note, how weird was it to start Hallowe’en before dark this year???) and hooked up for what qualifies as the best Hallowe’en ever! The kids had so much fun going out together, and we moms just strolled along the roadside, hot travel mugs of green tea in hand, and chit-chatted (something we two particularly do exceedingly well!).

It’s nice that all four girls are old enough to run up to the doors and ring the doorbells on their own now, and with the four of them the excitement was at a fever pitch. We pulled in about twice as much candy as last year, which was fun for the gals.

On the other hand, Dad reported that there were only eight, count ‘em EIGHT trick-or-treaters in the hour-and-a-half we were gone! And only three more after we returned. We still have one whole box of mini-candies left over, which I’ll try to return to Wal-Mart (sans receipt…what are my odds?)

Anyway, the girls got right to work sorting the haul (they always combine their candy…nice, eh?) into a “keep” pile and a pile for the Hallowe’en Witch. This is a make-believe character we have invented who comes to the house a day or so after Hallowe’en and if you leave out half your candy for her, she will give it to kids who were too sick to go out trick-or-treating (or some other similar calamity that would require candy). In exchange, she gives you a toy, or a DVD or somesuch reward.

I love that my kids are still interested in the Hallowe’en Witch.

Well, time to get those ankle-biters off to bed before they barf from junk overload!

Pics tomorrow of the super-cute mummy gingerbread men I made for Girl2’s preschool party, as well as the super-cute bat and ladybug.