Halloween Adventures

Last night Grace and I were doing the dishes together, and she said, "Mom, I've been reading your blog, and I'm glad you don't make it seem like you have a perfect life or anything, but I think sometimes you write too much about your hardships, and it's kind of depressing.  I mean, you're a great mom and everything, but I think you need to write about some happier things."

Oh, I laughed.

She is totally right. 

My blog is a place I can go to write about the thoughts I'm trying to work out in my head, but I have a great life in so many ways.  I want to be sure my children know how great it is to be their mom.

So I thought a good place to start would be to record what a fun Halloween we had.

Halloween is seriously one of my favorite holidays. Eric's not a big fan, but the dressing up, the pumpkin-carving, the walks around the neighborhood where everyone waves to each other . . . that's just fun. 

After our first Halloween celebration (at church on Thursday night), the children were so excited to sort and trade their candy.  The boys sat at that counter for at least 30 minutes--grouping the chocolates, skittles, and suckers and then dividing them evenly.  It was really cute to watch.

At celebration #2 (on Saturday), we got to spend time with my side of the family in Long Beach.  This is my sister Lisa and my handsome dad (he's turning 80 this year!).

Again, my two little storm troopers found a special spot to sort their candy.

These are three of my five sisters: Lisa, Susan, and Laura. One time I was at an event with Susan, and a friend of mine said, "THAT is your sister? But she looks nothing like you!  She's so tan . . . and so skinny.

What do you say to something like that?  I smiled and nodded, and I have laughed about that ever since.

I snapped this picture of our "costume bucket" because it just makes me happy.  Lots of hats and little accessories the kids love.  I should probably upgrade it to something fancier, but they have no problems digging through the container to find something fun to wear.

I was reading an email from Saren on Monday, and she said, "Off to carve pumpkins!"  I panicked. 

How could I have forgotten the PUMPKINS?  

It had totally slipped my mind with all the adventures going on around here.

So I piled the children in to the car, took them to pick out pumpkins at our local market, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the night carving and gutting three of the four pumpkins myself.  (My children can't stand the innards, but I told them this was my last year doing it for them.  I was exhausted by the end of the night.) 

Did you see the pineapple that Eric carved?  He doesn't really like pumpkins, but he did a great job hollowing out the pineapple, and we all had a nice sweet treat to eat while we worked.  The children thought he was hilarious.

And here are my sweethearts right before we went out on Halloween night.  The girls are wearing my cheer uniforms from high school, and I even taught them one of my favorite cheers to perform for anyone who asked.  There was quite a bit of squabbling about an hour before this photo was taken, but by the time we talked it all through and sent two of the four to their beds for 20 minutes (I won't say who), everything worked out just fine.

This is Grace's "bestie" from school, who we joined up with halfway through the trick-or-treating:

And as soon as we got home, Spencer said, "I want to sit on the porch and pass out candy.  You know, in that chair . . . with the bowl."  

He did the exact same thing last year (same costume, too!):

Alia spent some time this afternoon making a candy display, and we have got to figure out what we're going to do about all this candy.  I've heard quite a few possible solutions, but for now, we're just letting everyone enjoy their full bags and reminisce about the fun time we all had together.

And this is my favorite picture:

My heart was so touched by my friend Rachel's post about her mom this week, and I felt incredibly lucky to be healthy enough to be out running around with my kiddos this Halloween.  I asked Eric to take a picture of us so I could remember the moment.

I love this little family of mine.  And I feel very grateful to get to be the mom.