Halloween

We are officially out of the apartment and no longer have a storage unit!  Yay!  I felt lighter the whole day after I turned in the keys and checked by the storage unit office to make sure that they did not charge us for November.  The girls were really helpful cleaning the apartment too.  I mean really helpful.  Not the "give them a chore to keep them busy while I do the cleaning" kind of helpful.  Actually helpful.
     Now everything we own is in our house.  It's not all put up.  The whole "get a load or two a day and put it all where it belongs" only went so far before things began piling up.  So the dining room looks like a storage room for now.   But it too will be cleaned out!
The stuff will be conquered.  That or thrown out.  I realize I am far too sentimental about many things.  I also keep things because I may need them one day and won't want to pay for something I need that I used to have but got rid of.  I blame growing up with my Depression-era grandparents.  At least I don't bury money in jars in the yard or wash and save ziploc bags.
   





Wednesday was the Halloween trick-or-treating at Jason's office.  His office is pretty cool and the girls always love to go there.  His co-worker really decorated their particular office too so it was extra cool.  And there was lots of candy.  The girls were especially excited about the one guy that was giving out king size candy bars.
   
 














On actual Halloween Day I tried to make it a fun day.  The girls kept asking if we had to do school on Halloween.  I just kept reminding them that kids in public school do school on Halloween too.  But we did have a "spooky" breakfast.  And later I got out the craft supplies for us to make paper pumpkins.

     We also finally stopped at a pumpkin stand to buy pumpkins for the girls to carve.  I had bought some earlier to decorate with but I didn't want the girls to cut them up, so we bought three more for the jack-o-lanterns.

     By the time we got home, we didn't have long before the scheduled trick-or-treat hours.  I also had to get some kind of dinner together so we could all eat when we got home.  So yes, I have the girls knives and other sharp instruments and left them to it in the front yard.  I did cut the tops off for them.  I ended up helping Lyla cut her face out.  But they did a pretty good job with no help.  We usually have patterns and poke the little holes to mark where the cuts should be, etc.  But this time they just free-cut it.  And they were happy with it.  And I think they came out spooky enough.  Of course I couldn't find the tea lights to put in them.  So mosquito repellent candles had to suffice.  They lasted longer anyway, and any mosquitoes that outlived the cold surely didn't hang around our front porch on Halloween night.

     On Saturday we got to go to another Halloween party at a co-worker of Jason's house.  She REALLY likes Halloween, so their entire house was decorated.  There were spookies in every corner!  They had one really spooky butler statue that looked real.  The girls all had to get up the nerve to go touch it when we first got there.  We kept expecting it to suddenly turn its head toward us throughout the night. Just for clarification - Gwyn is a black cat.  Celee is a leopard.  Lyla is a ladybug.  I am a box of Cracklin Oats.  And Jason is a puppet from a not-really-appropriate internet commercial about Cracklin Oats.  At least we got to wear the costumes more than once.  And a few people knew what Jason and I were both times!

     So just for fun and because I can, I started building a rock staircase up the side of a hill next to our driveway.  Gwyn helped for a while and said, "I don't think anyone would ever say something is as easy as it sounds."  Right-o.  "I'll just lug these rocks from down hill up the yard to the top in a wagon."  sounds kind of easy.  But rocks are heavy yo!  The staircase isn't exactly going to be handicap accessible, but I'm kinda proud of our little stone creation.  So Happy Halloween costumes, candy, pumpkins, rocks, and parties.  It was a good week.