Halloween Gone Mad!

For those without small children, please let me explain Halloween circa 2010. It is not the one night event plus small school party you may remember from your childhood. In preparing to highlight this year's adventure, I looked back to last year's postings. There are FOUR on Halloween alone. I could easily do that many again, but am going to try to spare you a bit. That said, it has basically gone on all week (or more if you include my very brief stop at the Ghoul's Gone Wild parade more than a week ago). I'm going to start with the "move" (press play to start it) as that's the best part, and for those of you brave enough to continue on, I have a quick bullet summary of the events.

Wednesday: "Fall Festival" at B's school. I was in STL so no pics, but am told this included B wearing his Ironman costume all day, taking candy, a pumpkin and $2 to school for pizza (yes, Ms. C brought all this with him for us- thank you!). At school they, apparently, had fun activities in the gym that included painting on their pumpkins, candy, games, etc... I am a little vague on all this as I only have B's short version of events. (Last year's party is detailed here and scrapbooked here).

Friday: We had planned on attending the Palfreyman Pumpkin Carving Festivities, but there was a last minute change due to sick Palfrepeople. (You can read about last year's event here). We "should" have stayed home or gone swimming or something, but instead went to "Haunt the Zoo." We love the zoo, but this was a mess. We were in lines for well over an hour before the first "treat" and spent the entire time smooshed in with everyone in a slow moving series of lines. Basically, you flow through a planned path at the zoo getting treats and taking pictures at tableau's (or you would do the later if your kids liked that sort of thing). No animals, way too many people, way too much time standing doing nothing. People watching was interesting and the kids seemed to enjoy it, but I'm pretty sure we can have more fun with less annoyance other places. Easily the most people at a non-football event that I've seen since we moved here.

Saturday: Delightfully chill day time including neighborhood walk, followed with time with Bren'ts Mom (we try to spend the pre-trick or treating time with his parents when the situation allows, Bill was sadly in CO). We did our photoshoot in the front yard and headed off with our neighbors to circuit the block. M, desperately wanted to get in the street, but was otherwise an adorable strawberry girl. B again braved the neighborhood social scene and we ended trooping around with some people from the cul de sac. It was a good group and we went slowly. I was surprised how few houses were participating. There also didn't seem to be quite as many kids out as I remember. B randomly fell down a lot even with his mask up, but both kids hung in there. M can 'almost' say trick or treat and B has the whole set up down pat. He did admit his feet were tired when we headed home. At home, we all gorged on candy and gave more away to remaining trick or treaters. B got to stay up late to help with our Gratitude project. At the end of the day, I had some lovely craft time and we all went to bed sugarloaded but happy.

Sunday: (Random side note, in reading last year's I see M was still waking up at least once a night- both mornings this weekend they let us sleep until nine! A Halloween miracle). Moving on, a lazy, craft happy day together. We watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and generally hung out together, at candy and relaxed. While the kids napped, I went to Halloween Zumba (which was awesome) and then we headed to Norman to Tom and Emily's party for the final take on Halloween. (Norman did not move Halloween unlike OKC which is how this worked out again this year). This time we got to make the rounds with the Hoppers and return back to the house for lovely wine and cheese and chatting with friends. There were fun party games and B won best boy costume (he may have been the only small boy left, but whose counting). B did admit on his way back from trick-or-treating that he was tired of it (at last)! He had a little sugar crash at the very tail end of the long day, but that is probably expected.

I loved watching them go up to the door. Privately thrilled at all the comments on M's costume (which I made with some creative help from Tracie and Chrissie) and loved building these memories together. I think we got some great photos and look forward to scrapbooking them about this time next year as I spent much of the weekend working away on layouts from last Halloween. Hope you and yours had a lovely weekend as well!