The Halloween 2013 Report

What? It's only 2 days late.

We started our Halloween early - 6:30 a.m. early. I took the day off to work at the fall festival at church, so I got to take Luke to school for his fall party. We did couples' costumes this year, and Luke was my partner. That means, I woke him up Thursday morning dressed in full costume, to which he responded, "It's Halloween day!"

Ahoy!

We took Ella to school, and she wore her pumpkin outfit for the Halloween Vocabulary Parade because masks weren't allowed and a gorilla suit just isn't complete without the mask. She chose the word "smiley" to describe her pumpkin.

After we dropped her off at school, we amused the patrons at Jack's while we had breakfast dressed as pirates. Luke got his first candy of the day at 8 a.m. from one of the ladies behind the counter. After that we paraded through the grocery store because I needed eggs to make cupcakes for the fall festival. I thought it best to take him with me, else I would just look crazy traipsing through Lucky's dressed as a pirate. 

Then we met up with Aunt Becca and Jake at preschool so that we could put a cape on the Caped Crusader.

I spent a few hours making cupcakes and putting my house back together because life is a whirlwind and that's what my house looked like. Then I headed to the church in the afternoon and found myself moved almost to tears by the amount of work that had been done in preparation for our fall festival. Eight other ladies and myself were in charge of organizing the thing and seeing it come to fruition was amazing. We asked for lights in the back parking lot and were told it would be taken care of. I expected a temporary solution but I found that a group of men had been there for days replacing all of the old outside lights with ones that actually worked. The area will be lit every year now. Those same men were busy setting up the booths and tables and popping popcorn. Inside, a group of ladies had already stuffed sacks for supper and were cooking hot dogs. They had sorted the prizes and divided them up for each booth. Things were under control; there wasn't much for me to do except answer questions and carry things. 

When the kids got there after school and nap (for the little ones), we took them trick or treating on Main Street. 

The gorilla costumes were a hit again this year, but with the baby gorilla, they seemed less scary and more...sweet. I'm not sure that's what either of the gorillas were going for, having listened to their plans to jump out of bushes to scare people, but I also think they didn't care because it was 80 degrees and way too hot to be wearing gorilla suits. 

After trick or treating, Dave was on kid duty while I worked at the fall festival. They played there for a while, then Dave and Aunt Becca took them to trick or treat the neighborhood and give out candy at Grandma and Pop the Pop's house. They were done with the crowd at the festival, and I couldn't blame them. It was quite a crowd. Once I finished at church, I met them at Grandma's house and just sat for a while. We finally rounded them up and took the home to scrub them and put them to bed. They were disgusting, sweaty, sticky, exhausted messes. 

The next morning, they were clean, exhausted messes and that is what I call the Halloween Hangover. Too much candy, not enough sleep - Halloween Hangover. But, it was fun.