Halloween

I was a pretty good sport this year and participated fully in all the necessary Halloween functions.  I'll admit, it was mostly because Garrett wasn't around, so I felt like I had to step up and be the fun parent since I was the only one.

Garrett did carve two little pumpkins for the girls, during the first week of October.  That was the only time he would be around during the month so we had to settle for carving 3.5 weeks early.. so they definitely didn't last until Halloween.  The girls had fun though so I'm happy he was able to do it with them.

The first graders at Abbie's school do a "hat parade".  We found this big sparkly spider at Michaels and decided it would be a perfect hat.  We hung smaller ones with fishing wire from the legs, to look like little babies.  Abbie loved it!

Immediately following Abbie's hat parade, I rushed over to Ellie's school where they put on their little Halloween parade with their costumes.  The teachers take the kids around the area, trick-or-treating at local businesses.  It was really cute.  This is a pic of Ellie and her friend Will:

Olivia was a little kitty who couldn't stay still to put her whiskers on ;)

Trick or Treat!  We went out a little bit early in the evening so that we could get home and Facetime with Garrett for a bit before bedtime... he wanted to see them in their costumes:

And, here's a pic of the girls at the Trunk or Treat, which was the weekend before Halloween.  It makes me a little sad that Garrett missed out on all the Halloween festivities -- hopefully we can make up for it next year!

I have to say, I really miss the good old days (up until 2 years ago) when we could just take the kids to the Trunk or Treat and then be done with the whole thing.  Halloween is just so dragged out, between the school parties, church parties, neighborhood parties, trick or treating, etc... it's just so excessive.  It doesn't help that I don't like the holiday to begin with, but I tried really hard this year to have a better attitude since the kids love it obviously, and Garrett wasn't around to balance me out since he DOES like it. :)  Anyway, it's just really disgusting the amount of candy my kids got and I just don't like the mentality of MORE MORE MORE CANDY!!!  I also don't like having to fight my kids 50 times a day, which is how many times they ask to eat some every day.  I feel a little bad throwing it all away but honestly, I will be getting rid of at least 75% of it.  I'm hoping to work out some sort of "buy back" from my kids, to give them a little spending money and also to let them CHOOSE to get rid of the candy.  I hate having it around.

So, I am thankful that Halloween is over and we can move on to Thanksgiving!! One of my favorites.