Happy Halloween!

Ah, Halloween!!! It's not my favorite holiday, and I feel bad to admit that I never even got around to decorating the house for it! But Halloween is a day for children, and as a mom of three of them, I can hardly ignore it! So it was a Happy Halloween around our house this year....

First up, Trick or Treating of course! DUH.....that's the best part of the holiday, right? Our trick or treating was actually held on the 30th (Thursday night), so our trick or treating has been over for a couple days already.

So here's a couple pics from that.....Zach tried to keep up, but Matthew and Alaina were so excited with the prospect of all the candy, they kept taking off and leaving him in their dust! Buzz Lightyear, Darth Vader, and a little pirate princess set off to get as much candy as possible!

We only go to the one neighborhood, because going up to Grafton Hills gets us all way more candy than we'll ever really need! And Karl gets SOOO excited in anticipation of "the cool house"....the one house that outdoes all the others.....they go all out with decorating and acting their parts to scare the kids..... This year they had a 'pirates' theme, which actually helped to NOT scare our kids, since they were playing the soundtrack from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride from Disney World, and the kids just started singing along....but they had their house decked out so well with pirate skeletons and stuff.....

Plus, they gave out full-sized candy bars...what's not to love, huh? :P

So that was Thursday night! On Friday, it was the kids' class parties at school, and I was room mom for the Kindergarten one. I had been coordinating with other moms over the last week getting this party ready, so now it was showtime! Plus, I had to keep tabs on Alaina's class party as well. As soon as I got there, I gave the kids their costumes and they went to change....I had to help Alaina put her eye makeup on for her pirate costume....and then I had to break a school rule and run into the boys' bathroom to help Darth Vader get his pants on! :P Then I got the other moms to start the Kindergarteners' games and crafts and I went to go take some pictures in Alaina's class of what they were doing:

then they had a parade for the parents, and since it was so nice outside (like 80 degrees!), we went outside the school for that:

And yours truly somehow, once again, managed to take pictures with the big camera AND do video with the camcorder. It's a gift! :P

Then it was party time! Each class made a craft....Matthew made a bat, Alaina made a ghost....then games, then snacks!

And that was Halloween for us! Friday night, since we'd already been trick or treating, we went grocery shopping! Then Karl made the brilliant (just glad it wasn't MY questionable parenting decision) move to stay up late and watch Poltergeist with the kids. Uhm, that movie scared the CR@P out of me when I was way older than Alaina or Matthew.......and it still does, darnit! :P i lasted all of 10 minutes and then bailed and went back upstairs. :) Evidently though, it didn't scare them.....I guess our children have moved beyond the 80s horror flicks? I wonder if Freddy, Jason, or Michael Myers would scare them? Uh, we're NOT testing that hypothesis......yet!

Saturday, Matthew started swimming lessons, so he and Alaina both had swimming classes to go to. I stayed home with Zach and did dishes and made lunch for my parents, who came over for the afternoon to visit. They all got home around 1 for our late lunch of soup and sandwiches....then we spent the afternoon visiting with my mom and dad. Poor dad.....he's shrunk! He's the same height as me now, and he used to be 5'10"! Sheesh.....getting old really stinks! We went on a drive to check out the fall colors at Pere Marquette State park.......it was very pretty, and with it being such a nice day out, really crowded! After we took our drive, we came back here for some dinner and then my parents left for home.....so that's our weekend so far....

So that brings me to update you on all the scrapbook pages I did....since I had some airport time on my hands I got a few pages done earlier this week that I haven't posted yet...

Here's one from the Halloween Carnival at the school last weekend:

This is a layout of us getting our pumpkins at Eckert's And carving said pumpkin into our scary jackolantern:

This one is with some pictures I took over a month ago of Zach playing in the ditch after a rainstorm.....it doesn't drain very well, so it's like a giant puddle, and this was the day that Zach discovered the joy of it....fully clothed of course!

And the Madonna concert Monday night!
And then to finish up, this is my blessing for the week.....it seemed appropriate, given the lovely scenery......the season of Autumn:
So that's it for me....might post more tomorrow, but doubt it! :P I got my blessing done early, so now I feel like I've got extra time on my hands.....oooh, plus we get that extra hour of sleep tonight, which I'm going to go thoroughly enjoy...right now!