I was ready to post this blog, when I realized, "It's not even Halloween yet!" We've had a lot of celebrating fun this week, which has helped to balance out Brian's car dying Thursday morning (as in DEAD, not mostly dead). We had Halloween storytime on Tuesday, where Anne was a princess, and Lucy was a bumblebee.
I always forget how thrilling candy can be at such a YOUNG age!! Lucy tore through her bag of bookmarks and plastic bugs just to get to that pixie stick in the bottom---how do they even know what it is?? Thursday, Maddie had an orchestra concert (we love how much orchestra improves with each year!), after which we went over to a Halloween story telling at the library, and then a tour of the annual Syracuse "Pumpkin Walk" which we've never managed to attend before. It was pretty cool seeing the HUNDREDS of pumpkins they have set up (people just carve and contribute) w/ Christmas lights set into all of them to light them all up. Amazing!
 |
| pizzacatopopcorn |
 |
| the kids were excited to find a "Psych" pumpkin! |
Friday, the elementary school has their costume parade and class parties. We missed the parade due to not having a car, but rode the bike up to Spencer's party to help out a little later. I heard many great reviews on Brent's unicorn-pegasus costume. He was quite a hit--crazy guy!! His teacher even let him wear it all day, instead of changing after the parade. He loved that his wing could flap while he wrote.
His costume fit will with our
Despicable Me costumes Emily thought up (there is a stuffed unicorn that is ALMOST a character in movie). I thought we'd all be "minions" w/ Brian as "Gru" and Brent as this unicorn, and got supplies for all of it, but at the last minute I found out Maddie never wanted to be a minion, and Spencer just couldn't give up any chance to be a ninja. So--we almost had a family theme, but seeing as how the older kids don't even trick-or-treat, I could hardly deny anyone the chance to choose their own costume. We all dressed up--except Brent, who was NOT the unicorn after all, but had fun playing ball w/ the Deacons--yesterday for our ward chili cookoff and trunk or treat. Brian usually loves to join in the cooking, but we were TOTALLY beat after working on cutting off all of the sod from our side yard---AT LAST!!! We have planned on doing it all MONTH, but this was the first Saturday we had the time AND conditions dry enough. It seemed so brilliant as we planned it out, but in the middle of the work, we almost wondered what we'd gotten ourselves into!! Dear Brian felt like he'd wrestled w/ a 500 lb cow for 3 hours after using that huge machine!!! WHEW!!! The children were CHAMPS rolling up ALL the sod that was cut while I made chili (2 batches in 2 hours, as the first pot burned while I was in the shower!!!!) and Brian returned the rental machine. In between all that, we're looking at small pickups to replace Brian's car, and just enjoying the crisp fall! Tomorrow we'll carve our pumpkins and have a family Halloween party--the children are off of school, so it should be fun!
 |
| Gru and his minions |
 |
| superballerina, lopsided minion, and ninja master (whitebelt) |
 |
| LUCY MINION, at times confused with a miner |
 |
| BEFORE |
 |
| AFTER |
P.S. The kids carved all of the pumpkins this year!!!--ALONE!!! Maddie really helped in finishing things off, but hooray for their ambition!! I was busy trying to move our sod to cover patches before snow came while all of the trickortreating started. We then left a bowl of candy on the porch, brought a huge bag downstairs and played games/ping pong and watched Alfred Hitchcock presents for our Family Halloween Evening :).
