Neither rain nor cold...

One thing about living in NC is that you can never be too sure ahead of time what the weather is going to be like on the night you trick-or-treat.  I can remember years that that sweat was as bountiful as the candy collected.  And then there are years like this one where it felt like Snow White was going to meet snow and Tinkerbell was meeting winter...

please note that Snow White was wearing tights under those leggings and socks and don't miss Tinkerbell's fleecy, purple, snug-a-bye pajamas!  we had a cold front on pretty short notice.  

Lucky Lightning and Mater.  A few extra layers underneath the hood didn't alter the look much.

they ran laps through the downstairs for at least an hour waiting for ian to get home

I wasn't too concerned about the cold.  I knew I had my crew pretty layered up.  But then the rain started.  And that little blip on the weather radar map must have simply stalled out on top of our city.  Because it started raining at 3ish.  And it was still coming down pretty heavy well after 6.  Ky especially was starting to look glum as she worried that trick-or-treating would be cancelled.

To lighten up the mood, Ian decided at the last minute to sport his "middle school dance moves guy" look.  To say it surprised the girls is a bit of an understatement.

oh how i hate you can't see his little "alfalfa sprout"

And yet the boys took Ian's costume all in stride.  Maybe didn't even notice.  Or did Caleb?

I think he was trying to imitate what he perceived to be coolness.  Cause you know, when you are a five year old boy, your daddy is the coolest guy on the planet!

Thankfully the yucky weather didn't cause our trick-or-treat dates to stand us up!

after all, we've been pounding the pavement on october 31 with them since we moved here!
(btw, if you know this crowd and are friends with either parent on fb, be sure to check out their daddy's costume!)

Once we got outside, Daniel was a very quick study in how this whole candy thing works.  He was like a little machine, forgoing his umbrella and racing down the sidewalk ahead of the rest of us.  Little buggar used that cuteness to his advantage.

He'd just keep smiling and reaching.

And folks would just keep piling the candy in his bucket.  Seriously.  He came home with much more candy than his siblings.

Sadly, I don't have a single picture of the wee one out during his first trick-or-treating escapade.  It was all I could do to manage an umbrella, flashlight and crowd control.  (No free hands for trying to manipulate a camera with a jammed autofocus).

And you'll just have to take my word for how wet we managed to get during our candy gathering.  Soaked top layers were peeled off immediately and, while I'll leave you guessing at who, I couldn't photo document the annual M family candy swap because one of my kiddos sat in their undies to count their loot before running off for a warm bath.

I've not had that much fun in the rain in a long time!  Thanks for joining us C family!

But here's hoping that next year is a dry one!