Halloween!

We had an awesome Halloween!

I stalked weather.com all week hoping that the forecast of rain would be changed, and it didn't up until Saturday morning, when it changed to morning/early-afternoon showers, and a mostly-cloudy evening. We got a tiny bit of drizzle just as we started trick-or-treating, but that was it.

On Friday both kids had parties at their schools. I'd wanted to go to one of them, but ended up having other things get in the way. I had to help make cookies for the church Trunk of Treat, and then my Visiting Teacher came over for her monthly visit. We had a really fun chat. Patrick had been a doll and gone down for a nap just before Errol left for school, so I had an hour between when Errol left and when she came to make my cookies, and then Patrick was all cute and happy while she was here. We had a nice chat, and she left me chocolate. :D

Raia came home with a rainbow drawn on her face and a bag of treats from her school party (she'd correctly guessed the number of candies in a jar - 40), and Errol came home with a pumpkin. Which brought our pumpkin count up to 7! He looked so funny coming off the school bus with it, because it was in a plastic bag which the bus driver draped over his arm, while his backpack was hanging from the other, so he had a bang hanging from either elbow, and he just waddled down the driveway until I got to him to relieve him of his load.

In the afternoon we went to the library for the homeschool literature group. I had a new little girl to read stories to this week, instead of the two little boys I've had the previous two weeks (I assumed they were sick, since there's a bug going around). She and my kids enjoyed the stories, and then they played together until the older kids were done.

Raia had brought a little kitty toy she'd won at her school carnival with her, and of course lost it. I'd told her to leave it in the car, but she snuck it in. She was devastated when we finally had to give up looking for it and go home (I assume it was stolen). Hopefully she'll listen to me next time I tell her to leave her toys at home or in the car.

On Saturday we had a bunch to do. I'd thought there was a new convert baptism of a 9 year old who will be a part of my Activity Day group now schedualed for 9:30, but when I got to the chapel there was no one there. I called the person who had given me the information, and apparently they'd goofed. It was at 12:30. So I went to the store instead to pick up some things. Aparently I was there at an excellent time, because they were having "Doorbuster Sales", and one of them was a Nintendo Wii for $200. Plus there was a coupon for $30 off any purchase of $150 or more. So we now have a Wii. I used to swear up and down that I would NEVER have a gaming system in my house, but the Wii has won me over with the Wii Fit (which we'll hopefully get for Christmas). It just seems like a cool system that does more than make you spend hours on your butt.

When I got home we started carving our pumpkins for the Trunk or Treat. I wanted to decorate our trunk with a "Canadian" theme, so I did our largest pumpkin with the Vancouver Olympics symbol (a big, rock statue looking thing). I'd also wanted to carve a maple leaf into one of the pumpkins, but Raia would have none of it. She gave me very specific instructions of how I was to carve her pumpkin, and George wanted a pumpkin made in honor of Patrick (it only had two bottom teeth), so, since I didn't want to go through the hassle of carving a fourth pumpkin, I let the one big pumpkin be our one Canadian pumpkin. I did make a ghost that said "Boo! Eh?" on it from poster board, and each of the pumpkins was given a touque to wear.

When the pumpkins were done I went to the baptism (it was beautiful!) then to GoodWill to get a plaid shirt and a "woodsy" looking hat for George to wear when he passed out candy, since he was going to be a backwoods Canadian. We bought a big Costco box of mini bags of chips to hand out too, since that's something that's passed out in Canada on Halloween that isn't passed out so often here in the States. I'd also bought him a carmel apple spice drink from Starbucks with the intention of tacking a Tim Horton's logo on it, but I ended up running out of time.

At the last minute we couldn't find the Minnie ears headband for Raia's costume, so she ended up wearing the Minnie Mouse basball hat her grandma had sent her that had ears attached. It ended up being for the best, because of the drizzle, and also because the headband never really stayed on very well at the hospital party last Saturday, and considering how dark it was it would have been a PITA to have to be always fixing it and/or looking for it on the damp ground where it would be looking for black on black.

The Trunk or Treat was a ball. The kids really enjoyed all the games they had inside prior to the ToT'ing, and I admit I had a fun time myself.

When the Trunk or Treating started Errol picked right up on saying "Trick or Treat!" and would get an absolutely gleeful look on his face each time he got a new piece of candy, and sometimes even broke out with an evilish laugh. He was like Gollum with his Precious. The kid is a candy fiend.

There were lots of fun, decorated trunks for the kids to go to. The missionaries got into the spirit of things this year too, decking out their bikes with orange and black crepe paper, and passing out candy to the kids.

After that was over we went back inside, where there were tables and kid-friendly Halloween music playing, and they served hotdogs and chips and juice.

From there we went to a nice part of town to do actual Trick or Treating (our own neighborhood doesn't have a lot of festive people on it. Less than a third of the houses pass out candy). We picked an *awesome* neighborhood. There were lots of people around, and the houses were really decked out. One of them had a motion sensor on the drive way that triggered the release of fake fog in front of you, and a pyrotecnic jack o lantern on the roof of the garage! There was also a giant spider that spit water at you if you got too close (I kept Raia and Errol away from it). Another house had the owner dressed up as Jack Sparrow (and he looked the part!) holding a candle, and he had the kids gather around him as he "told a tale" of going to Davey Jone's Locker to get the "sweets". It was exactly what Halloween is supposed to be. The kids made out like bandits, and I had to hold Errol's bucket for him between houses. I was glad I'd dumped out their Trunk or Treat candy at our house before going to the other nieghborhood, because when we got home and I put the candy back into Errol's bucket it ended up filling it to the very top! (Raia's bag wasn't quiet so full, but it was also bigger than Errol's bucket).

Patrick slept through the Trick or Treating, but that was fine. Next year he'll hopefully be able to participate a bit more in the fun.

It was an awesome night!

The one downer was that Errol got sick at about midnight. Like changed-the-sheets-and-his-PJ's-TWICE sick. I don't know what triggered it, and he was fine by Sunday afternoon, thankfully. Raia and I went to church alone, but it was for the best. Sacrament meeting was *awesome* and I don't think I'd have been able to get as much from it if I'd had to deal with the two boys being boys.

This week both Raia and I have visits with the dentist. Should be fun. Not.

(Pictures of Halloween to be posted later)