Halloween 2015

Halloween was a bit different this year.  

This year I was in recovery mode from many things outside of my control.  I decided that I really didn't want to put money or effort into costumes.

This year I am sugar and gluten and dairy free.  Just getting enough of the right foods in my body is pretty time consuming, so although I try to feed my family their favorite things, I did not get around to making any of our traditional treats - caramel apples, cookies of any kind, or homemade donuts.  

In fact, the whole week was crazy.  We had a Pack Meeting carnival night on Tuesday.  My boys had a GREAT time.  Tyler took the boys and let me stay home and rest (I was fighting a cold).  On Thursday night we opted to stay home from the Primary Halloween party because we needed some down time and we were due to party hard on Friday and Saturday.  And this is how it went.

Thursday morning before school - mixed up dough for bread (we were out).  Barely supervised Drew who remembered that it was the pumpkin carving contest and he really really wanted to enter.  

He decided to wing it and just go at the pumpkin with a knife.  

I like his Frankenstein marks.

Forgot to set the timer and the dough had already risen and fallen by the time I checked on it.  In order to salvage it I turned it into cinnamon bread.  Made a great after-school snack.

Friday - went to fix sandwiches for lunches and remembered that I didn't have any bread.  Made "ants on a log" instead and per the boys request popped popcorn for their grain.  I did pull out all the healthy leftovers for breakfast and my kids went to school armed with a breakfast of yummy fried chicken, cheesy bacon scrambled eggs, and cinnamon toast.  And then some of them snitched popcorn on top of that.

  Got all the school kids costumed up, homework finished up (gotta love Friday mornings), and Emmie dressed in her princess dress.  We all headed out the door for school and Emmie and I stayed to watch the Halloween parade.  An hour later, we came home just in time for my visiting teachers to come over.  They left just in time for me to run across the street to visit with my neighbor whom I visit teach.  In the middle of that I ran to her front porch and called Camden over, who was waiting on our front step while his carpool mom was wondering where I was.  Finished up, came home, and called Tyler back about evening plans (we had played phone tag all morning) and realized it was time to go get donuts for Drew's party.  And I still hadn't fed my little ones lunch.  Did we even have anything for lunch?  *look around frantically*  Popcorn!  I filled two brown lunch sacks and put them in the car with the kids.  To the grocery store for donuts.  To the school for the party. Fortunately the mom in charge had everything ready and had asked me to come early so we got to sit, relax, and Camden and I worked on the classroom puzzle - Drew's teacher is sooo cool (and Emmie finished her popcorn).  I was still fighting my cold and didn't have much of a voice but I still managed to run a station for an hour.  My kids ate donuts and we came home - nap time for mom and TV time for the kids.  When I woke up I remembered that we had leftover meatballs in the fridge and I did manage to get some of those into the tummies of the little ones before we went back to school to pick up the boys and go trick or treating at Tyler's office - more sugar, yay!  I was never home to make dinner so we served the family the pizza that Callie had brought home from work the night before. Thank you, Callie!

  That night was date night and Jacob was slated to tend, which meant that Tyler and I were going to find a quiet corner of the house and spend some time together.  Except there was a communication error (those happen so often via text!) and it was in Callie's favor - about a dozen of her fun friends came over to hang out.  There weren't many quiet corners of our house.  We did retreat to our room, but when I checked on the boys at 9:30pm I found them all munching on suckers! Between the sugar intake and teens coming and going from the front door all evening our little boys stayed up waaaaaay too late.  

We did get a doorbell ditch in the middle of it, courtesy of more of Callie's cute friends.  It is fun being the parents of a good teenager!

 Saturday - Jacob was off to a scout pow wow a little after 8am, then Hannah and Tyler headed out to go watch a soccer game, run a couple errands, and pick up some groceries.  When they got back Tyler and I headed out with Drew to take him to lunch and then look at a couple dishwashers.  We got home in time to have a quiet hour and then get started on dinner and pumpkin carving.  Mandi's family joined us.

Two cute little girls on pumpkin cleaning duty

They joined us for some carving and a little visiting and got to experience Jacob whining about having to write a paragraph for his state report for a couple of hours instead of carving a pumpkin.  They got to experience Drew whining about how he wasn't carving a pumpkin (remember you chose to carve yours a couple days ago for the contest?) - he finally wised up and decided to carve into his pumpkin some more.  I think Mandi did most of the table setting and dish cleaning and Mandi and Lex took the kids trick-or-treating...we were in fine form, folks.  We were Halloween-ed OUT.  

I don't mind a treat now and again, but I hate sugar overload.  

I think dressing up can be fun, but I don't like the hassle of pleasing little people and spending unnecessary money and stress - we eliminated that this year and I'd call that a plus for sure.

I like spending time as a family, but half of us went separate ways.

I love greeting trick-or-treaters at our door, but I was too tired to do that this year.

I love time saying hello to the neighbors, so I am really glad that Tyler and I went with Jacob and his friend to the haunted house down the street and got to visit with friends along the way.  We live in a GREAT neighborhood for Halloween.

My favorite part of Halloween is the pictures.  They were rushed this year and didn't turn out like I wanted but at least I've got something.

Our crazy fry guy.  Thank you, D, for reusing this great costume.  Last week when he wore it to a Halloween dance I think he was pretty happy to win first prize for the children's costumes.  But after feeling how awkward it was on Friday, he panicked right before trick or treating and insisted on wearing something else.  What else are you going to wear?!?  He didn't know, so off he went like this.  Aunt Mandi said he had a hard time keeping up and he couldn't pick his own candy from the candy bowls.  Good things to note for future costumes!  

Our little Emmie has always been challenging to photograph.  She doesn't like to hold still, and this time was no different.  At one point pre-Halloween, Emmie wanted to be Sheriff Callie.  The cowboy hat I found for Camden came in a 2-pack and we had all of the other supplies.  On other days she wanted to be a princess, and since Jada was dressed up as a princess you can bet that Emmie was going to need to be one as well.  I told her that I just needed to take a few pictures of my sheriffs together and then she could change.

The group Aunt Mandi and Lex took around.

Just after these photos were taken Emmie charged into the house and demanded that Hannah help her change into her favorite purple dress-up.  She kept the red boots on, though.  I should have gotten a picture.  I knew she would be cold and by the time she got home from making the rounds she was also sporting Jada's sweatshirt.

Jacob and his buddy Cale decided together that they would be hobos.  They created their costumes together with what they could find around the house, which I thought was really fun.  Alas, I never got a picture of the two of them together!

Jacob and his trick-or-treating buddies.

Pumpkins lit and ready for trick-or-treaters!

We couldn't have asked for a prettier day or weather.  If you look closely below you'll see a hobo and a caveman headed off to get treats from their first house.