Happy Halloween

I must say, I am very pleased with myself. To get ready for this Halloween weekend, the kids and I made a paper mache head, and painted a face on it. I'm proud of the way that I backed up and let the kids DO it, instead of just taking over and making sure it was done RIGHT - IE: My Way.

Ray and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary on Friday with a night out without the kids. We picked up the kids Saturday from my parents house, and got home in time to get dressed for Trick-or-Treating. I painted E's face with only a picture to follow (Ray most flatteringly asked me if I had a stencil to use, and was quite impressed with my freehand artistic ability - good husband!). I messed up M's hair for her Mad Scientist costume, painting purple lightening bolts on her face - again free hand. I have to thank my neighbor for the rest of her costume, she sewed the white lab coat and provided wire rim glasses. She also provided J's spider man costume, and helped with E's hair. She's Great!

I sent the kids out with dad for a bit, while I put green Split Pea soup on the stove to cook while we were out, and also loaded the dishwasher so we would have dishes to eat on. We set up our scarecrow outside, and M figured out how to make the fog blow straight out of the mouth - sorry to any of the little kids we freaked out. The parents all seemed to get a kick out of it, I hope no one got mad at us! The best was when the PARENTS were scared by the fog streaming out of the mouth! (Note: We had the button to release the fog inside next to the door. When people came to the door, we would all run to get it. J would open the door, while we yelled at him to WAIT! As he was happily handing out candy, one of the kids would then push the button and release the fog! If J wasn't there first, we would release the fog and THEN open the door.)

We went out trick-or-treating in the rain, which thankfully didn't last long. I am pleased with the way I stayed laid back about my kids running all over the place, didn't get all freaky about controlling their every movement. This is a huge step for me, but I know it partly comes from the fact that my kids are growing up, not so much from large spurts of maturity on my part. The kids got heavy candy buckets, and we ran out of road about the time they ran out of steam.

So, to sum up, it was a great mom moment, and I just wanted to document it all. We did not do jack-o-lanterns this year, but the kids LOVED the scarecrow/fog machine. To all you moms out there - I know you all did the same thing, so pat yourself on the back and allow for a little satisfaction on a job well done!

Now, here are the pictures of my cute kids!

 Here they are, Mad Scientist, Ballerina, Superman, and Spider man

You can see our scarecrow on the side. The smoke came out of the mouth.

 M is practicing for what she wants to do when she grows up

 E would LOVE it if we would put her in dance lessons, so she could be a REAL ballerina!

 S's costume would have better fit J, and J's would have better fit S... Oh well!

 Thanks to the warm weather clothes under his costume, he actually looks like he has bulky muscles!

 J wore the mask for 3/4 of the trick-or-treating. When I told Ray how surprised I was that he still had it on, I think he finally realized that people would still give him candy even if he took it off.

I felt much more confident about him and stairs once his eyes weren't blocked!

Happy Halloween Everyone! Only 8 weeks until Christmas!!!