Halloween Shenanigans

-Halloween festivities began last last Friday when Reese went to a Halloween themed birthday party.
-Then I had preschool parties with my Friendly Frogs on Tuesday and with my Busy Bees on Wednesday (several preschool posts coming soon!)
-On Friday, I chaperoned at Quincy's school field trip and brought Corbin and Cole along to enjoy some trick or treating as well.

-The kids had a great time and scored some impressive candy loot.

-Reese dressed as Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. We borrowed the cape and scarf (thanks, Karen!), bought her shirt at the Associates Store for $1.50, her "dress" is a sweater vest of mine, she wore one of Aaron's neck ties, the belt goes to another dress of hers, and her knee socks are from t ball a few years ago.

-Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon monopolized most of my costume making time and creativity, this year. She freaking loved her costume and that makes staying up all night to sew the skirt from fake leather with a crappy machine 100% worth it.

-How funny are those trick or treat bags from Paul and HolleeAnn? Corbin's got so heavy, he dragged it behind his body like a roller suitcase. Cuteness. We borrowed his monkey costume for Friday from Cole. Hey, Corbin, is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy to have a giant bag of candy?

-From Trick or Treating, I took food to Quincy's school party, then went over to Cooper to surprise Reese at school and have lunch with her.

-Back to the preschool to pick up Quincy, home to make homemade cornbread and black bean soup to take to the ward party.

-We opened a package from Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Pumpkin and the kids went crazy with happiness.

-Reese got home from school at 3 and we joined the zillion other associates families at the Walmart Home office for trick or treating. This is the one time a year that I get to go to Aaron's work. It is always a lot of fun to see where he spends his time and visit with a few of his coworkers. I have a running joke with Aaron that I don't actually know what his coworkers look like in real life, because I only see them on Halloween and they are always in costumes. Does his assistant really have that rockin' afro, or is it a wig? (it's the real deal, btw...glad I didn't make an idiot of myself and comment on how "real" it looks!)

-2 floors, 1 Hogwarts Express, a million cubes, and a haunted house later, we moved our party to the church for the chili cook off and ward trunk or treat. I dressed as a pirate and Aaron wore his You Can't Beat LA shirt and proudly announced that he was an NBA player on lockout. Does that make me the basketball wife? Sweet! Show me the money, baby!

-Seriously guys, 2 more weeks without NBA. Kinda nice...

-One great thing that happened at the ward party was that Quincy was introduced to our friend, Shane. More on that experience later. Catania, you are brilliant.

-The kids loaded up on even MORE candy at the trunk or treat and crashed on the way home.

-Saturday was the Halloween 5k/1K race (post coming soon), the pumpkin patch, meltdowns and chocolate diarrhea for the children as a result of the candy free-for-all binge session. After that, all of the candy bags were emptied into a giant communal bowl.

-The children were permitted to watch Hocus Pocus (um...language? not so much for little kids, but it seems to be going over their heads, thank goodness. Not my proudest parenting moment! I don't recall the movie using the word "virgin" and "sucks" so many times. Oopsie.)

-Aaron bought some GROSS parmesan and garlic popcorn that tastes like feet and uncooked pasta roni. We attempted to have a date after the kids went to bed and Aaron's movie of choice was Zookeeper. I'll never get that hour back.

-I lie. I only lasted 10 minutes. Once the animals started talking, I checked out and fell asleep.

-On Sunday, we made ghost shaped cupcakes and delivered some to our friend, Pam, who had a mastectomy last week. The rest went to school with Quincy today to share.

-Tonight, for FHE, we carved pumpkins and saved the seeds for roasting (save a few for planting next year!). We ate mushroom dill soup (thanks Katie, you're a dream!) for dinner, and put out our jack-o-lanterns, witch broom, and bowl of candy out on the porch before the girls went to bed.

Right before bed, the girls opened another package, from Grandma Lynda, this time. My kids love getting mail. Thanks auntie, uncle, grandpas and grandmas!

The Halloween Witch stopped by, snacked on the candy (read: threw away everything gross, sorted out all of the colorful candy and set it aside to be used for gingerbread houses in December, and bagged and stashed the rest outta sight and outta reach.) In exchange for the candy, she left The Wizard of Oz. This was a childhood favorite of mine. I'm really excited to share it with my own children. I hope the flying monkeys won't be too scary for the kids. I think I scared them enough this weekend when Quincy saw Shane's missing thumb and I told her he sucked it off when he was 5...

-More posts comin' atcha soon!