Halloween 2009
"Peek-A-Boo"!
Chicken, Lil' Punkin', Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom
So, Halloween has come and gone and as usual, I feel like a bit of a slacker because I didn't decorate, dress up or even make treats for Josiah's class. I did make his Chicka Chicka Boom Boom costume, so I did something...but even that was pretty simple. As you can probably tell. Josiah absolutely refused to wear it to school on Friday, insisting that no one else would be wearing costumes. Imagine his surprise when most everyone at Patch Elementary came dressed up.
I tried hard not to be offended. You have to pick your battles and it was one I didn't particulary feel like going crazy over.
Josiah and Annika weren't terribly excited about Halloween until about 4:15 p.m. yesterday evening. Trick or treating was to begin at 5:00 and run until 8:00. Suddenly, the idea of CANDY (!) being handed out seemed to penetrate their skulls and within about 28 seconds, both of them were in costume and itching to get out the door.
I took them and Hans stayed home with Will, who let me dress him up in his little Halloween outfit and indulge in some pictures. Maybe next year he'll go along. Josiah, Annika and I headed out around 5:30...a perfect early fall evening with the moon almost full and the scent of burning leaves in the crisp air. Since housing here is so dense, we were able to gather a lot of candy in a small amount of time. We went down our street and up the next row of housing, then took a shortcut back to the homes of the "very important people (aka: Generals, etc.)" and hit a few homes back there. You know, the houses where they give out entire Hershey's bars...not Bit O Honeys (though I LOVE Bit O Honey and have nothing against it). Back down the other side of our street and we were done.
We returned home where I let the children turn their pumpkins over and stuff themselves with as much candy as they could hold. Surprisingly, they didn't eat every bit and then vomit. They showed remarkable restraint...they each ate less than half, gave a lot of things to each other and to Hans and me and saved the rest for today. They have been nibbling off and on today and it's almost gone. I figure, what the heck...Halloween only comes around once a year.
And hey--they fell asleep just fine, no bouncing off any ceilings!
