Why I Oughta...

Take a peek at what Menards has this year from Lemax.  Me thinks that Mantleburg is going to come out of the recession with a bunch of new building permits this winter.

We had 327 trick-or-treaters come to our door last night.  Now...I have to admit, that my nephew wanted to do some of the 'tracking', so he was writing down some of the numbers so this may be fudged a bit, but not by a ton. That's 86 kids that we "know" (or live on our block/next block), 9 adults with no kids, 6 teens with no costumes, 1 girl who refused peanut M&M's and the rest made up of kids that we "don't know" and don't live in our neighborhood. The numbers saw a big jump this year and are on a clear upward trajectory. Last year, we had 269 total .  And only 37 kids that we "knew". In 2010, we had 236 total . In 2009, we had 184 total .

How about my talented wife?!?  Thanks to her handy work, there's a pretty great Mickey the Mouse jackolantern on our front porch ready for the deluge of kids (and adults!) who are going up and down our block. Last year we had 269 individuals come to our door .  Will we top it this year?

We carved pumpkins last night and light them up for this video.  (If you are reading this in your email, you should click through the title above to see the video)  The Babe drew her face and we cut it out.  I tried a pumpkin with some brains!  Although, you can't totally see them in the video.  I used a white pumpkin and cut it into the shape of a football helmet, minus the facemask.  And then just wedged it into the top of the open orange base pumpkin. Here's what it looks like in photos:

Thanks to Equation Boy/Man, I was able to see the Bears come back to beat the lowly Panthers yesterday.  See that silver-haired guy in the navy ball cap in the center of the photo?   That's this guy .

As usual, the pinata took center stage at Noonie's Halloween party.  Unlike past years, this thing only survived a few wacks. Those are some realistic costumes, eh?  Werewolf with glowing eyes! Here's the post and photo from Noonie's Halloween party in 2011 . Here's the post and photo from Noonie's Halloween party in 2010 .

We spent a few hours this morning trick-or-treating around the Elmhurst City Center.  Businesses were giving out candy for kids and the downtown area was packed.  The nice guys at Sushi Nest (above) were awfully nice to the Babe.    She was a princess.  But with an owl hat and a Muppets hoodie underneath.  She went with it! The Bird didn't get out of her stroller, but she was the star of the show.