The Force comes out on Halloween| In so many more ways that just costumes!

Happy Monday Friends!!!

When we moved to celebration, we never anticipated the true gem we had found in this little town!!!  I love my hometown of Virginia Beach, but the more and more days and months we spend living here;  the more we find that this little town in Orlando, Florida is claiming our hearts and becoming our true home!

It’s important to find a place that “get’s you”.  A place that day in and day out, you not only feel comfortable but you can breathe a bit easier and feel totally comfortable in your own skin!  Over the past few months, we realized that this “weird” little town as some people may call it, truly is our kind of town with our kind of people!~

It is a town that is a bit “cookie cutter” some people might say.  Some might call it too perfect and might feel that people are “too nice” or that it’s straight out of a movie, like Pleasantville or Stepford.  In some ways, it kind of is, but we genuinely feel it’s the perfect little spot with it’s one stop light, it’s beautiful downtown where leaves fall out of pumpkins when fall hits and it “snows” at certain times in the winter!

People are actually truly nice and truly happy because it is a town based on community and being outdoors and getting together!

But you see… these are all things we knew already!  What we didn’t know… was Halloween!!! 😉

Ya’ll… Halloween is Bananas!!!

My brother, nephew and sister in law came in town to spend some time and also to trick or treat with us and it was a blast!  We were all kind of shocked at how big of a deal Halloween was around here~!  I knew it was going to be big fun because of the decorations that had been up all month.  I mean, you can’t live in a town called Celebration and not actually celebrate, right?!  But let me just tell you about the actual day… woah!

Our family of three had planned to be a Star Wars family!  It’s super funny because this time last year, I thought Star Wars was a Christmas movie!  I had never even seen a single film!  Isn’t it funny how time flies by and things can change in an instant.  Now Linc has seen quite a bit of the films and is seriously obsessed with all the characters!  We’ve officially become “that family” and we absolutely were not the only ones!

We had plans to meet up with some of our friends but seeing as how we were all on different schedules and trying to get all 6 of us out of preschool, fed, dressed and ready to go was quite the impossible task:  we missed our timetable by a bit!

Unlike Virginia Beach, there aren’t hard and fast rules for trick or treating here!  When we picked Linc up from school, kids were already out ringing door bells!  We made it out by about 530, I think and we were unprepared to say the least!  Going out for Halloween here reminded me of going out for Halloween when I was little!  It wasn’t so much about ringing doorbells and getting candy.  It was about meeting up with friends, showing off your costumes and actually having fun in your entire neighborhood and community… until you just couldn’t walk anymore!

There were activities set up for the kids in some circles.  There were houses that had DJ’s and dance parties.  There were popcorn machines and hot dogs!  Some houses and snacks and juice boxes while others had coolers filled with adult beverages and jello shots for the adults!  Some houses created fantastic mazes and haunted houses for the kids to visit, if they wanted, while there were just candy stops if they didn’t want to participate!  It wasn’t just trick or treat, it was a full on village block party (and that was just our part of the town!)

Kids and parents were all dressed up together and everyone went at their own pace!  Our crew tired out pretty early with their candy bags dragging behind them on the concrete!

We headed home together and I realized then that I knew I had found home!

I hope everyone had a happy and safe halloween!!!

Sometimes I think it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the days events;  especially on days like Halloween and such!  One thing I love about photography, whether it be professional or iphone or any kind of camera at all, is that it allows you to go back just for a second and remember the time without feeling that rush like we did on that day!  Our children are only little for so long and although some days… boy do those days seem long!  I mean good gosh… there are some days that I know I win mother of the year award… and I can only wish bedtime comes sooner 😉

Who is with me on that?!

But truly and honestly… I know before I can even count my sheep to sleep, Linc will be all grown up and I will look back on these images and wish he was little again!  But at least I have these moments… to remember and take me back to these days!  To help me see the moments even now… that I might miss because as a mom we are always so busy trying to anticipate our children’s needs and wants!

So keep at it friends… keep taking pictures because it’s the moments in between that help us remember!  It’s the moments in the middle that catch our breath and remind us that goodness gracious what a beautifully imperfect life we have when we can stop for just a second and take a real look at it!

xo

B