Pretty Kitty, Fruit Bat, and a (sometimes) Deflated Kickball

Halloween on Veteran's Day?? So sue me.

The Halloween Wrap-up! Adam was Himself 15 years ago... This is what a Busy Mom's Halloween costume looks like. I happened to be wearing a zebra-striped shirt that day...add some fake lashes, and voila... Zebra!

This was the Annual Pre-Trick-or-Treating Chili Dinner - the only way we actually get to eat a decent dinner before the candy influx - Thank you McCooks!
This is the face of Halloween Night anticipation!!

This is after we have Tricked and Treated ourselves to exhaustion. Now we're all hanging out on the driveway passing out candy to the last trickle of Treaters.

This is Lizzie playing with the Funny Glasses.
Oooh! Scary Ninja with the humungo glasses!

This is Ivy after asking if we can have some of her hard-earned candy:

This is what the beginning of a late night sugar crash looks like. Time to go to bed!

Happy Halloween!

A Week Later and...

LOOK!! Look at all this candy! Imagine twice as much (at least). That's what we started out with. And it's not as if I have been hoarding it from the kids! This afternoon, in fact, Eli was bored and I said, please, please, eat as much candy as you can! When Ivy woke up and Lizzie came home from school, I gave them the same job, and you see what I am left with! TONS OF CANDY!! I've only had a few (dozen) pieces myself! But, this is what happens when you have three trick-or-treaters in one family. Candy overload. I had never thought about it before this year, but it's kind of insane. I mean, really, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ALL THIS CANDY???? Seriously!

I can't give it to the poor. No nutritional value. I can't can it. Or make it into jam, like I would if I had an overabundance of a fruit or vegetable. And I can't save it for next year. (Tacky Mother-of-the-year Award, not to mention old chocolate. Not to mention that the chocolate would never make it through an Arizona summer.) Throwing it out seems wasteful and mean. No, there is nothing to be done. I am simply forced to be tempted by it daily, and ration it out to the kids so they don't tip the scales of the childhood obesity crisis in America. I mean, what am I teaching my children? And HOW amd I supposed to handle them when they are on a constant SUGAR HIGH!! It's not as if they aren't naturally hyper and loud, and now, well, let's just say that on Sunday, I was counting down the hours till bedtime at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

I wish I had an actual recipe for "Sweet Dream Pie" which is the name of the book I read to the kids at bedtime tonight. In it, an old couple makes a humonguous pie and fill it with "everything sweet," and it lists everything on our counter, and then they bake it and serve it to the entire neighborhood and everyone eats too much and their sweet dreams turn in to wild dreams. But at least they got rid of the candy.

So, what are you doing with all your candy?

Halloween! What a blast!! Glad it's over!!!!

Party Party Party! It was one long continuous party today.

So, one guy we met put a twist on the whole give candy for nothin' but dressing up tradition, he made them tell a joke to get their treat. Of course, I cringed and backed away, hoping he wouldn't notice the parent of the worst joke tellers (although enthusiastic) he'd ever heard in their lives.
Eli spoke up first: Knock, knock (Oh no! Not a knock-knock joke!!)
Candy Man: Who's there? (so innocent! I should have saved him before it was too late!)
Eli: Doris (what's this? I've never heard this one before...)
Candy Man: Doris who?
Eli: Doris closed. That's why I knocked. (Ha! Who knew he had it in him!! He must have read it off a Laffy Taffy candy or something!)
Candy Man: laughed his head off. And gave Eli a handful of candy.

Of course, the rest of the night went like this:
"The guy a couple houses down gave us extra candy for telling jokes. Knock-knock."

Enjoy the costume pictures! We had a really fun night.

Pumpkin Carving Time!

Adam, Eli and Ivy carved their pumpkins tonight using patterns printed from the Internet...Ivy chose the kitty-cat and Eli picked the scary face. Ivy's job was to extract all the goop. Eli's job was to do the first scrape.

Look at Ivy!! She's smiling in a picture!! This might be a first...

These will look great at the Pumpkin Walk at school tomorrow night!!