Obligatory Adorable Costume Pictures

So it's basically mandatory to share cute pictures of your kids in their Halloween costumes, right? Right. For your viewing pleasure, adorable Annabel the Lion:

ROOOAARRRR!!! (No literally, that's what she's saying in this picture.)

Yup, she's pretty much the cutest lion ever. (Except don't tell her that - she's set on being a SCARY lion! ROOAARRRR!!)

So sorry, that's it for pictures. Maybe we'll take some more this afternoon when she goes trick-or-treating with the 2-year-old twins across the street. It will be a lifetime first for both me and Annabel - believe it or not, at nearly 28 years old, I've never (ever) been trick-or-treating. My parents weren't fans of the whole Halloween thing, so I stuck to the innocent Little House on the Prairie, baby, and angel costumes and only did our church's annual "Harvest Festival." I didn't mind this growing up because I still always got to do fun stuff and got plenty of candy, but I'm going to give the whole trick-or-treating thing a chance with my kids. We'll see how it goes!

I remember well the fun I had at those "Harvest Festivals," though, so I was determined to find something similar to do. Amazingly, despite our extremely-churched area, we couldn't find a single church that was hosting any kind of family-friendly Halloween event.  (What's up with that? Those things are awesome and are also one of the best ways to serve & bless people from the community.  Anyways.) After extensive internet research we finally managed to find a community Halloween festival about 15 minutes away. It cost $3 per kid (adults were free - guess they weren't planning on my and Nate's awesome bean-bag-throwing, candy-winning skillz) and was chock-full of toddler-friendly games with an unlimited supply of tootsie roll prizes for all. Because it was in a community center, they even had a McDonald's-esque playland (pretty much Annabel's dreamland).  Annabel LOVED it. We successfully managed to give her a non-scary, tons-of-fun Halloween experience. Mission Accomplished.

A local photographer had a station set up for free Halloween photos:

A surprisingly great family photo - it's only blurry because I took a photo of the photo. (I'm way too lazy to figure out my mom's scanner.)

After the picture came out, the photographer said I should have sat sideways because you practically can't even see my 33-week belly. Apparently it's true what they say about black being slimming. I joked with him that I should have taken a picture sitting sideways next to a pumpkin (because no matter what Baby Center says, it's definitely more of a pumpkin than a pineapple hanging out in there). I was half hoping he would offer to let me take a free belly photo, but no go. Ahh well. I really should start posting weekly belly pictures in these last few weeks just so you can all be as aghast as I am at how huge my belly is capable of being. I've definitely reached the pity stage of pregnancy, where every time someone asks when I'm due and I tell them mid-December, they give me a look and/or a comment to the effect of, "I'm so sorry." Yeah. It's ever-so-quickly approaching time for this little pineapple-pumpkin to come out. More on that topic tomorrow! (I already wrote the post but I'm going to save it for now.)

Happy Halloween everyone!