The Halloween Report

Oh, isn't Halloween fun? I was just feeling a bit blah yesterday, which is too bad, but that's the way it happens sometimes. After I ironed 6000 shirts for John, I laid down on the bed and started to read Water for Elephants, which I am really enjoying so far.

My sweet husband took over and roasted the pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin carving yesterday. He even delivered me some in bed. We always roast them, and I always don't like them very much. But it's a tradition, right.

I recruited Grace to help Ethan with the French hobo costume, which I don't think my son had given a bit of thought to. She was all over that, though. She found some older pants and destroyed them, same with a shirt. I finally came downstairs and Ethan just looked like a kid with torn up and dirty clothes. It was the face paint that did the trick. I thought he was actually pretty cute. Gertie decided to go with the Tinkerbell costume, over the bumble bee. That suited me just fine. Our sitter and friend had donated those costumes for her, and nothing could have been easier. She woke up from her nap on the crabbier side yesterday, so it was a bit of a challenge getting her into the costume and out the door, but we finally got it.

Grace had asked to go trick-or-treating with her friend across town. Both John and I were disappointed to lose her, but I guess we both understood and remember being that age and wanting to go off with your friends.

I took Gertie and Ethan with me to drop Grace off, and figured that could be our trial trick or treat. Gertie said trick or treat, but it was below a whisper. She didnt' hold her bag open, she just stared at the big girls and the rest of the family. And with some prompting she said thank you.

This could be interesting...
We decided to hit our old neighborhood first, because if Gertie pooped out, Ethan could still go around our neighborhood a bit. The first house we went to there was a woman all dressed up with pink spiky hair and pink and silver sparkly stars painted all over her face dishing out the candy. Gertie walked up, whispered trick or treat, and then did a combination of dropping and throwing her bag toward the woman. It was like she really wanted the candy, but wasn't going to get too close. We picked her bag up and said thank you and went on to the next house.

At each house she'd ask me if they were going to be scary. She actually was doing such a good job with her manners after a bit that I let her walk up with Ethan alone. She would come running back to me jumping and giggling and telling me that she got a piece of candy. She loved it. Although, really, what kid wouldn't. Think about this holiday. We teach our kids to knock on doors and get free candy. It is quite the score. Anyway, one day a year...I really don't know what I'm doing with my camera. I turned it to night-time setting and took this picture. Apparently I lose auto focus when I swich settings, and my hands are just too shaky, not to mention the moving people I was trying to photograph, but I thought this picture looked kind of cool. Kind of like I had super-imposed this family of mine into this shot.

Ethan faithfully said "Treeck-or-Trreat" (that is my best attempt at his French accent) at every house. One guy said, "What are you? A hobo or something?" Ethan said, "A French hobo." The guy roared with laughter and loved it. He said that was the best one he's seen so far. He made my son's night.

We came to our home where we had stocked up on a huge bowl of candy to give out, but at the end had decided that we wanted to both go trick or treating with the kids, so no one manned the door here. I feel badly about that not only because now we have a huge bucket of candy on top of three way too big collections of candy, but also that when we pulled up to our house, we had left the porch light on, so I bet we had lots of eager knockers and then no one here to answer the door. We decided that next year we really need to keep one of us at home. It's just that each of us hates to miss it. A friend of ours said he saw some big bowls of candy just left out on the step for help-yourself trick-or-treaters. There is an idea.

It was a good time for our family. And when we picked Grace up, she had a big bag full of candy, and a wagon full of non-perishable food items for the Salvation Army's Food Shelf. These girls had split their time between candy and a service project. This idea had never even occurred to me. I was so proud of them.

Happy Day to all. Oh, one more thing. For a Minnesota Halloween, we couldn't have asked for more. The day was probably in the low 60s. It was beautiful.

Now I need to pack up all this Halloween stuff and get ready for Thanksgiving.