We had a triple birthday celebration at the end of last month. Ruth, my mom, and me…three generations all born in the same month. On the morning of Ruthie’s birthday, Peter made pink birthday pancakes. He even went a step further and carved a pink princess out of one of the pancakes.

We took the pumpkins that grew in our backyard and carved them to look like…us. Can you tell who’s who in this Johanik pumpkin family?

On Halloween day, we added to the packaging of the candy we distributed to trick-or-treaters.

We likened it to scattering seeds throughout the neighborhood ‘garden’.

Jeremy was at a birthday party, and Jake was busy finishing up school work while the rest of us put labels on all the candy.

Then we waited for the trick-or-treaters to come.

We also went trick-or-treating. Even the big boys. Don’t be fooled by Jake’s serious face in this photo. He (dressed as a runner) was more excited than everyone else to stockpile as much candy as he could.

Molly welcomed everyone back and was happy to help them sort their booty.

Derek has officially renamed trick-or-treating to “Trading Candy”. He observed that we buy candy and give it away to the neighbors, then we walk around  and collect candy from those same neighbors. We trade.

We ended the night (and the month) by going to Sonic for 50 cent corndogs and Chipotle for $3 burritos.