Halloween Marathon

So, for some reason, Halloween seemed to be a massive event this year. It started with a costume birthday party the Saturday before, followed by our ward Halloween party Tuesday night. I think it wouldn't have stressed me out as much if I'd just been smart and purchased both kids' costumes, but I couldn't find a skeleton costume I liked -- they were either too creepy or too poorly made. So, several hours before the ward party I was still glue-gunning felt to a sweatsuit. It took forever, but I think it turned out great!

The ward members all hosted different classrooms in the building for a trick-or-treat, and the kids had their first candy binge of the week! Thursday night we carved the pumpkins we had picked out for Family Home Evening. We wussed out again, by the way, and had gone to the grocery store rather than a pumpkin patch. Hopefully next year we'll be more inventive, but at least we had fun carving them. Connor actually designed and drew the face on his, then Ryan cut it out for him. For Elise's, we asked her to choose between happy, scared, angry, and surprised faces, and she appropriately chose scared.
We learned from Halloweens past down here, and waited to carve the pumpkins until a day or two before the event. It took exactly three days for mold to appear in the 85 degree weather, and one week before they were liquifying all over the porch.
Friday morning we had our Joy School party, which was fairly elaborate this year. We had pumpkin-shaped cake, mummy pizzas, eyeball doughnut holes, and witches brew, among other things. Oh, and of course, they trick-or-treated inside the house and ate candy. Saturday night we trick-or-treated around our neighborhood, which was surprisingly deserted. As a result, everyone we visited was just shoveling candy into their bags to try to get rid of it. Connor and Elise thought this was awesome, of course. That night was the major sugar-gorging. Elise ate a full-size Three Musketeer bar, at least 4-5 smaller candies, then an entire doughnut (Sister Callister hands these out every year), and still climbed out of the car at the end of the night saying "I'm uungweee!" I think they ran around in circles in the living room until 11pm, and I was truly surprised not to find any vomit the next morning. Good old Halloween, the celebration of lousy parenting!

On an unrelated note, here is one of the cool roses growing in our front yard. Plus, the kids decided to share a story in the dog cage. How else to pass the time while Mom and Dad are out partying?