Halloween actually started, not on Sunday, but last Friday with classroom costume parades and parties. Brian was a LIFESAVER and took the day off so I could run around like a crazy person. He took the older boys out for breakfast while I ran Brady to “school”. Brady’s class paraded around with the 3 and 4-year-old preschoolers. Then, I took Aiden to school after lunch, watched his parade (no party for him this year…boo hoo) while Brian ran Logan to school. I circled back to the house, grabbed all the party stuff for Logan’s class and then walked over for the school parade and a party. Meanwhile, Brian napped with Brady :) and picked Aiden up from school. phew!

Saturday, we did 2 soccer games in the morning (well, I shouldn’t say we because Brady flat-out refused to leave the car and enter the cold day for Aiden’s game…so I took him home while Brian coached, Aiden played and Logan watched. For Logan’s game later that day, I just had Brian take him because I knew it was too cold for the other boys). Later, the boys went with Meemaw and Grandpa to a fun park district Halloween festival in the afternoon while Brian and I cooked, cleaned and got games set up for our adult Halloween party that night.

Sunday was more soccer (Brian and then Logan again for a make-up game). I started re-cleaning the house, getting the food ready and finishing up the games around 7:30am, the neighborhood crew arrived at 3:00 and we all left to trick-or-treat around 4:30. We ended the night at Chad and Anna’s for pizza. Then it was back home to divide our candy into 2 bowls: things to keep and things to take to the fire station and donate to the troops (Logan and Aiden made a card to send along as well).

While it was a hectic and busy weekend, I wanted to immediately press rewind and do it all over again. Sigh…goodbye Halloween!

Taken with my (fuzzy) iphone: Brady in his costume parade. Check out mini DJ Lance Rock in front of him! Too awesome! I was actually hiding in the back of the room because Brady had some separation issues that day. Anne was standing next to me and wanted to get a cute picture of Brady. She totally didn’t mean to, but she yelled over to him to look our way. When he saw me, we had yet another round of “hand screaming child to teacher and run”

Here is Aiden during his parade as Drago (a Bakugan…he’s basically a dragon)

Aiden’s class:

Logan during the school parade. Here he is saying, “Mom! Mom! I just saw Miss Anne and Miss Anna and Ashley!!”

Logan’s class. He is on the bottom row looking verrrry serious with his full mask on

During our adult party Saturday night, we had a couples “white elephant style” costume game. We told everyone to bring a costume in a paper bag (well, one costume per couple) Each couple then had to pick one person, husband or wife, to wear the costume they drew from the wrapped up bags. Here is the first round (Brian and I contributed the Popeye costume…Brian is the pumpkin)

Little did everyone know that there was a revenge round where the people who originally had to wear the costumes then sat on one side of the room and went around and around choosing various pieces from ALL the costumes and dressed their spouse. I ended up in poly-foam bliss with a pumpkin middle, Popeye arms and a flower lei. Hawaiian super pumpkin!

Here are the decorations I put up for both of our parties: 

Halloween day party checklist: spread of munchies – check!

Fun food for the kids: Mummy Pizzas – check!

Dad’s eating cheese dip and drinking beer – check!

Games and a craft – check! Here, the kids are playing a game called “A Gift From Mummy”. I wrapped “magic beans,” as my boys call them, into a roll of toilet paper. The kids had to pass the toilet paper around in a circle, taking turns wrapping their arm like a mummy until they reached one of the beans. Susan (pictured here on the right) was holding a witch cauldron full of warm water. The kids took their beans, put them into the cauldron and then came back a little later to find a Halloween sponge creature. We also did a craft/game where the kids made mis-matched pumpkins by drawing out various mouths, eyes and noses from the witches cauldrons and pasted them on orange paper pumpkins. I didn’t take any pictures because that was just madness with 18 kids and 10 glue sticks! Oh, and in the background of this shot: kids trick-or-treating at a house where at least 4 different families were handing out candy. Score at the 554!

Traditional front-lawn picture – check! (this was by far the worst picture to date…check out the awful shadows! I didn’t actually take this by the way and the person who did…a-hem…didn’t get a shot of just OUR kids)

This was the first Halloween where Brady actually “got” what was going on. he LOVED every minute of it! He would open his bag and say “happy Halloween” to get candy. This is his first official house!

Most of the kids thought that the trick-or-treating was a race. Here, Aiden runs to give me Logan’s mask before dashing off.

A rare, and very backlit, picture of Logan standing still

Hey look – 2 of my kids in the same shot!

I mean really…take a look at Ryan (Iron Man) – he’s like full on ready for a dash as he’s coming off the porch!

Brady wasn’t running so much…he was my buddy the whole time. He went up to Anne at one point and told her, “I’m happy!” Of course you are! He also told me, “I’m a baby candy monster!” He didn’t want to wear his cape.

Here are most of the kids in our group crossing the street – look how some of them are literally mid-flight!

Susan strikes again with her amazing treats! These are brownie pops frosted and made to look like witches brooms with pretzel sticks. The kids enjoyed these after trick-or-treating was over and while the moms and dads had some pizza.