Halloween

The night before Halloween, we carved pumpkins with the girls. Jackson was not too interested, so we just let him be. He did have a pumpkin, and I suppose next year, we'll have three jack-0-lanterns. But this year, we left one pumpkin uncarved.

I've let it be known that Halloween is not my favorite holiday, and I was really not in the mood for it this year. The last several years have been weekend nights, so we went to a friend's house whose kids go to school with ours and had a party after trick-or-treating. That was fun. This year was a Monday.

So, I really didn't plan ahead on costumes other than grabbing a tiger costume at Costco a few weeks ago when Jackson practically pulled it off the rack and I decided I could check one more thing off my list.

We decided Katie could go as a lady bug because we had a costume her size already, in perfectly good condition. I call her "Katie Bug" all the time anyway, so it was perfect.

Maddie was a bit more complicated. After school that Monday, I happened to pull out a box from long-long ago and found a traditional Mexican costume I had purchased in Mexico forever ago. Due to its being all elastic, it fit her just fine, if being slightly long. Well, she loved it! I braided her hair and added flower clips behind her ears. Grandma Gottschalk had sent the girls some costume jewelry, and among the earrings were large silver hoops that really set off the look. I put a little makeup on her, and she was immediately transformed into the most beautiful girl in the world! Oh, did she love that costume!

We met at a friend's house and went trick-or-treating with about four families or so, with kids of similar ages. It was great fun. Surprising for me was the fact that Jackson didn't rip off his tiger jacket. In fact, he LOVED it! If you so much as pulled the hood back just a little so he could see, he would savagely yank it back up and over his eyes as far and as hard as he could. He thought he was SO COOL. His little friend Marissa (whose big sister is Katie's friend) rode in his wagon with him as we made up the back of the pack. The girls tagged along with their friends at the front.

Jackson figured the whole thing out pretty quickly. He'd point at houses with their lights on, urging Franz to stop the wagon and let him do his thing. He discovered that if he walked up to strangers, they'd give him candy! He would say, "one" and reach his hand into a bowl of candy and pull out one piece. Then he would say, "thank you," which would usually result in someone reaching back into the bowl of candy and handing him several more, all while saying, "awwww!"
Maddie's friend Tyler dubbed her the "Mexican princess" when she arrived, and she decided to own it! We had a hard time getting her out of character at the end of the night! She was so pursuasive in her acting, that Katie is anxiously awaiting wearing that same costume once she can manage to grow just a little more.

After successfully filling their buckets, the kids stopped at a friend's house for pumpkin bowling, a super-fun activity we'd never tried before.

Little sugar-rush Jackson managed to keep up with everyone until the very end, around 8:00. Finally, because he was so hot, I convinced him to remove the tiger jacket, but only because his shirt underneath had a tiger on it, too. He had his first ring pop (ick!) and discovered he did not like KitKat, but did like Nerds. I guess that is what Halloween is all about.

The day after Halloween, while stopping at Target for diapers, I discovered a whole section of half-off costumes, which as any parent of more than one kid knows, is a huge deal! :) There were a lot of strange things to pick through, like (and I quote) "Precious Vampire," but I managed to find one good costume each in the right sizes for each of the kids next year, just in case I am in the same mood about Halloween then that I was this time around. So, expect to see a blue monster, Cleopatra, and a snow princess, but I won't say who is who...