All Hallow's Eve

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  Second only to Christmas, I think.  Thanksgiving is close too, because I love to eat, but when I was a kid didn't care as much about Thanksgiving as I did Halloween and Christmas.  Those two holidays are made for kids.  Therefore, when you have your own kids they become more fun again.  (Even if they are both a bit stressful now too.  Didn't have THAT part when I was a kid.)  This was the first year that all three of the girls really understood what was going on and they were excited about everything we did.

Saturday and Sunday we carved pumpkins.  Since we had so many to carve, I figured we better pace ourselves.  Sonya did two pumpkins entirely on her own.  She drew the face and carved them out.  Lana drew on her face and Andy and I carved for her.  Georgia sorta draw and I carved an interpretation of a face I saw.

Andy took full advantage of the Halloween scare tactics again this weekend.  It was around bedtime on Saturday night and the girls weren't cleaning their room.  So Andy told them a spooky story of how Mommies and Daddies could call upon the ghosts at Halloween to come in to little girl's rooms who weren't listening to their parents.  He said if they didn't listen to us and clean then we would call the ghosts to help us scare them.  Thanks hon!  Way to make our kids NEVER want to go to bed!!

I try to soften this some, so they wouldn't get completely freaked out.  I told them, they have to keep in mind that this is also the time of the year Santa was watching them.  Christmas is right around the corner and they better be on their best behavior since he's making his final lists.  Sonya said,

"I like that one better."

"What?" Andy asked her.

"I like that one better.  About Santa I mean," she explained.  "That's better than the ghosts.  There's no such thing as ghosts."

I'm not sure if this meant she knows Santa isn't real either.  I just didn't go there with her.  It was  funny to me the way she said it.  Kind of like-"hey, if you're going to pick something to lie about to get me to behave the Santa story is way more kid friendly, so no more ghost crap okay?"  Well, at least we are well on our way toward Christmas so I can use the Santa one for a while.  Although I'm not sure how effective it will be by the time we actually get to December.

Then last night we all dressed up and went Trick or Treating.  Well the kids and I dressed up.  Daddy didn't, but I love to dress up on Halloween and wouldn't miss it.  Plus I had only worn my costume once and really wanted to wear it again.  In case you're wondering, I was Betty Draper from Mad Men. For those of you who don't watch the show, a 60's housewife.  Sonya went as Wonder Woman, Lana was Minnie Mouse (for the second year in a row) and GG went as Tinkerbell.  We had a friend come over with her two adorable girls to go with us.  (Hi Star!)  Her girls are close in age to Sonya and Lana, but a year older than both.  They had the Trick or Treating thing down and my girls seemed to take their cues from them.  They would all run up to a house, ring the doorbell, and shout out the appropriate "Trick or Treat!" greeting when the door was opened.  Georgia trailed behind a bit and was always the last to get her candy, but she didn't care.  It was actually the first year we've gone without a stroller.  Of course that fact made me happy and sad all at once.  What else is new?

Then there was Lana who more into it this year than I've ever seen.  She kept making me laugh because right after candy was dropped into her bag, she would look inside, and before even leaving the porch would yell,

"I GOT A LOT OF CANDY!!"

She did this at just about every house.

By the time we were done with the houses on our street, their bags were already full.  Lana and Georgia were done.  Sonya wanted to meet some of her school friends, who had invited her to go Trick or Treating with them.  So I got in touch with her friend's mom and Andy took her a few streets over to meet them.  It felt so weird that she was at the age where she wanted to meet up with friends now and not just hang out with us all night.  I mean Andy was still with her, but I guess this is the start.  That made me a bit sad.  The other two sat on our front steps with a big bowl of candy between them and passed it out to all the kids who came by.  They had a great time doing this.  Partially because it gave them easier access to eating the candy.  Every time I turned around Georgia was eating something new.  I finally had to take her inside and put her to bed before she ate the entire bucket.  Lana seemed to be a bit better about it.  I saw her eating a little box of Nerds, but it took her about 45 minutes.  I think she was eating them one by one.

Sonya and Andy came back a little after 8pm, and the Trick or Treaters slowly trailed off.  We finally got everyone in bed by 9pm, which is really late for them, but it doesn't happen often.  We all had a fun time, even if my house did look like a bomb went off and I had to clean for the next two hours.  Totally worth it.