Happy Halloween!

Here is a quick picture I managed to snap before everyone stripped off their costumes and dove head first in to the candy, candy, candy! Audrey and Amy are at the age where they make up their own costumes which is definitely less expensive for me but does make it a tad hard to tell what exactly it is they are supposed to be. Sooo .....

Amy is a Wizard from Wiz Tech - Wiz Tech is the Wizard Academy that the kids on the TV show "Wizards of Waverly Place" attend. She was going to carry her magician's wand but couldn't find it.
Allison is an elephant, thanks Jerri for the costume! However, if you ask David, Allison is a -Republican - hardee har har -
Audrey is a Spider Queen. If you look closely you can see the extra "spider legs" attached to the sides of her shirt.

I found the capes the older two are wearing at Kroger for $7.50 each. Both girls loved the capes and each simply had to have one or their lives would be completely ruined - at least that is what I was lead to believe. Amy had planned on being a Wiz Tech Wizard all along but Audrey now had to come up with something that warranted wearing a cape. She had actually thought of being a spider at one point and since this cape had spider webs on it - her Spider Queen costume was born. Then, I happened to find the black shirt with the gold crown on it and then we added some stuffed socks to the sides and voila! she was a Spider Queen.

Our Halloween got off to a rocky start but ended up ok. I went ahead and kept my teaching hours thinking that it wouldn't interfere too much with our evening. I taught from 3-4 and then 4-5. Next year I think I'll stop at 4. Kids were already ringing doorbells at 5:45 and we were no where near ready. THEN - to TOP IT ALL OFF - the door handle on the front door broke. Such wonderful timing! I was making a last minute alteration to Amy's cape, David was trying to make himself dinner and play with his new lap top at the same time, Allison was repeatedly taking candy from our bowl and the doorbell was ringing and then - The door handle completely fails to work. We can't open the door at all.

David, being David, can't just leave it alone. He decides this is the perfect time to completely remove the broken handle by any means necessary. The plan had been that he would take the girls trick or treating and I would stay home and pass out candy. But as he is getting more and more agitated and using more and more inappropriate words and more and more big scary tools to remove the stupid handle .... I quickly decide that I had better get the kids out trick or treating even though I have no make up on and I am wearing jeans that I am pretty sure have a stain on them somewhere and a Halloween t-shirt from the Harold's Outlet Barn (yes, that means the shirt is about 15 years old my friends!) I try to fill the candy bowl, place it by the door and head out. There is an extra stash of candy in the pantry but I have no way to communicate to this to Mr. Grumpy before I leave. Oh well - the kids had fun and even if we did run out of candy early, and I'm sure we did, the other houses were handing out 3-4 pieces per kid so I'm sure the neighborhood children got plenty of sugar.

This year Allison was old enough to not be so sure about it all. She did great at the first few houses but then she would hang back and stand as far away from the people passing out candy as she could while still getting close enough that she could get a piece or two. And by the end, she was perfectly content to stay with me while the older two went up to the doors to claim their goodies.

The hardest part for me was watching the other groups of moms out having fun with one another. We passed by so many that were trick or treating in groups with the kids running merrily to and fro and the moms following behind drinking "adult beverages" as they strolled through the neighborhood. Other groups had their fire pits in the cul-de-sac or driveway and were sitting in lawn chairs with the buckets of candy beside them or in their laps. It made my heart ache so much. I wish so much a really cool mom with kids the same age as mine would move here!!!!!!