Boo!

Wednesday night our parish had their Halloween party. I dislike parties that are not held on the Actual Day Of....like when they have fireworks on July 2nd instead of July 4th because the 4th is a weekday, or when the Church moves holy day masses around. I don't know why. Just my anal-retentiveness I guess. This year I get to be double irritated since our homeschool group's All Saints' Day party is NEXT Saturday instead of tomorrow. You know, like it's supposed to be. On All Saints' Day. Also, I get the fun of wrangling kids into costumes and out the door, and then settling sugar-loaded kids into bed, on two days instead of just one. But, anyway...I got over it. It is Halloween after all. Sugar-loaded fun is the whole point...that, and Mom being able to buy four bags of candy for the very few trick or treaters we actually get at our door. Because John and I split the leftovers between us, that's why!

So, we had costume issues with Maria this year. She scoured websites, looked in a couple of Large Chain Discount Stores, and could find nothing cool enough. She talked me into visiting one of these Halloween specialty stores. I've never actually been to one. Good thing, because it turns out that unless your girl child is under the age of 8, then she is pretty much going to be choosing from going as Raggedy Ann Turned Prostitute, Vampire Turned Prostitute, or my favorite, Nurse Turned Prostitute. They had costumes marketed by Play Boy. Seriously. I thought I had entered a totally different kind of store by mistake, until I saw the gallon sized containers of fake blood for sale.

Anyway, we settled on this half angel/half devil thing. It's ok. I'm not thrilled. It's vaguely suggestive in a "good girl gone bad" kind of way. It was the best I thought I could pull off at that point, just before Halloween, running out of time and options. She is still young (innocent) enough that she doesn't entirely get what bothered me about the costume. I probably should have just said no and left. But when you are stuck in a store with a whiny baby and a 4yo scared of the headless guy at the front door, and your 12yo is going PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE THIS IS SO COOL and really, it doesn't look so bad next to the other crap they have hanging on the walls,,,well, hindsight and all of that. But I told her next year we were back to making our own.

Notice how I have cropped it so that you can't see that the dress it really too short.

Kain is happy with anything that gives him an excuse to carry a weapon. So he was a ninja. He wore Maria's old karate uniform and some cool ninja gear his grandparents picked up for him.


Jack's lion costume was too, too cute. I love it when they are still little and they will wear whatever. I found this homemade costume at my favorite thrift store..someone with far better sewing skills than I possess made it, and God love them for donating it. My sensitive boy was a bit nervous when I asked him if he'd like to be a lion for Halloween. He said, "Will I bite me?" I said, "No, you'll be a nice lion." "Can I be a baby lion?" "Ok, sure, be a baby lion." And that was that. Baby lion....


Tess wore the same Halloween costume that Jack wore on his first Halloween. Jack, However, was only 3 weeks old when he wore it. It's a 6 month size, and we barely got her in it!


At our church party, they played games and got a bit of candy. Maria won a costume contest. Kain didn't want to stop playing games long enough to even enter! Jack just walked around the stage with his tootsie pop and then wandered away before the judging even got started.


Today we carved pumpkins....





but Jack thought it was way gross and went to jump on the trampoline with Daddy instead...


and we toasted seeds...


and went to a party with our homeschool group...



and then the kids went trick or treating with John.

I stayed home with Tess to pass out goodies to all four kids that came to the door.


John called after an hour or so and said Jack was falling apart, so I went to pick him up and left the big kids with John to finish making their haul. I brought Jack home, scrubbed grease paint off his face and stickiness from between his fingers, and we settled in to watch Linus wait for the Great Pumpkin until he fell asleep.

An hour and a half later, even the big ones had had enough. They knocked on the door, pretending to be actual trick or treaters, and I pretended not to know them and passed out candy, same goofy thing we do every year that they never seem to think gets old. Then they dug through their bags and began haggling. I dug through Jack's bag and saved the M and M's, little bags of pretzels, and lollipops for him, the only things he really likes, and tossed to rest to Maria and Kain to divvy up. They, in turn, tossed whatever they didn't want into the "parent bowl". They began to feast. After about 15 minutes, Kain announced that I should take his temperature because he didn't feel very good. He felt cool, and I expertly diagnosed him as having overdosed on too much sugar and too late a bedtime and tucked him in.

If tradition holds, each afternoon at snack time I'll let them break out their haul and have at it. Eventually, after they've eaten what they really like, they quit asking for their candy and I stash the dregs in a box in the kitchen. Then, when it's long forgotten and I'm tired of (grazing off it) looking at it, I toss it away. I'm always waiting for someone to come back in February and demand their 6 tootsie rolls and two laffy taffys, but so far it hasn't happened.