Happy Halloween!

We had a very fun Halloween. Greg helped the kids carve pumpkins on Tuesday night, which we grew in our garden, while I took pictures of the festivities. We actually grew six of them, but three of them stayed green and never turned orange. So, we carved a few. The best part was that Greg had picked Austin up from school that day and came home with two dozen roses for me. Greg loves to surprise me with flowers out of the blue for no reason at all. What an amazing husband (and son)! Greg carved a witch for Macy, and Austin created his own scary/funny face. Macy was hilarious (as always). After Greg had cut around the top of the pumpkin and was about to pull it off, Macy said, "Is there going to be blood inside?" After he took it off, she looked in and said (in a very excited and relieved voice), "Nuts!" I guess pumpkin seeds resemble nuts. Both she and Austin were good sports and helped clean out the inside. I had her hold it up and told her to pretend like she was eating it for a picture, but she wasn't going to do that!

Macy wanted to be a witch for Halloween, so we went and bought a pattern last month. Then, she changed her mind to a Princess. When we went to look at fabric, the Halloween fabric was so much more fun than another pink frilly dress, so my mom and I talked her into being a Princess-Witch. She was thrilled! Austin wanted to be Dracula. This is possibly the easiest costume ever. I bought him black pants and a long-sleeve, white dress shirt (which he desperately needed anyway for church), a $3.95 black cape from Walmart, and some face paint. It was great! Paige was a little duck. I bought this costume when Austin was a baby, and now it's been through Macy and Paige.

At school, Austin's class studied about spiders for the entire day-math had to do with spiders, reading groups had special books about spiders, and someone brought in a tarantula. The classroom was decorated with giant spiders on the ceiling, and spider legs hanging over the windows and doorways. Very creepy (and thrilling for a 6-year-old boy)! Miss Rachael even dressed like a Black Widow. I went to his school for the parade while Greg took the girls trick-or-treating at his office. After that, we had chicken noodle soup and they went trick-or-treating. While they were gone, I gave Paige a sucker for the first time. She loved it! Occasionally, she would lose track of it, and it was often stuck to a part of her body. I would find it on her belly or the back of her arm. Another little girl with a sweet tooth!

As always, both my kids loved giving out treats even more than receiving them. Macy sat on the front porch with Greg with the candy bowl. My good friend, Angi, used to live across the street from us. She was like the neighborhood Grandma (even though she was only 30-something). She always had extra fun treat bags for the neighborhood kids. So, in my feeble attempt to be like Angi (Greg said that those are huge shoes to fill), I did some fun treat bags for Austin and Macy's closest friends. Great fun was had by all!

I'm such a mean mom (as Greg would say) because I kept a few treats for the kids, but the majority of the candy was left out for the Halloween Goblin. We are trying to keep Austin off food dye, which is nearly impossible with Halloween candy. So, in the middle of the night, the Halloween Goblin came to our house and left a Polly Pocket for Macy and a magnetix Spiderman figure for Austin. They still got to enjoy the holiday and participate in trick-or-treating, but we don't have to succumb to food dye. Even though Greg probably doesn't believe me, I really did struggle with this one. I want my kids to have the "normal" childhood that we experienced. We never had to share or ration our Halloween candy. (Although we did have to dump our bags out and let me dad take whatever he wanted. He said it was rent for letting us live in the house.) I don't want Austin to be "weird," but I don't want crazy behavior either. I don't know! My doubts were made more apparent the next morning when I got a call from the woman that we carpool with. She said we didn't have to pick her kids up for school because she was letting them sleep in because Halloween was such an exhausting night. Greg said she was the "cool mom." Sorry Austin...I guess I'm not "cool"!