Halloween

So even though Halloween was only two days ago, I'm already feeling totally over it.  There's just too much anticipation, too much hoopla, too many weeks full of Halloween-related events and errands and preparation   that now that it's all over, as totally awesome and fun as it all was, it feels like more overkill, and I'm almost bored to be writing about it now.

My almost immediate indifference must be attributed to this instant-gratification society we live in, because two days later it's like, Halloween?  What?  Meh.  It's November now, onto Christmas!  

Wait, NO.  I'm not done with fall yet, so no Christmas for me until after Thanksgiving.  

Also, after the fact, I can't help but focus on the tackiness and excessiveness of this ultra-commercial holiday, and be thankful it's over.  

I am such a buzz kill. 

Buzz kill or not, my kids were cute in their costumes this year, and really, that's what this is all about right?  

Last weekend there was the big party at Grandma's (Great Grandma to Gus and Louie).  After all that drama (and later guilt) of getting out of the house with Gus's costume (really just one of Dan's old ratty undershirts all cut up) actually on him, we really did go on to have a great night.  

He complained enough that within about 20 minutes of being at the party we allowed the costume (t-shirt) to be ditched.  Gus then shoveled two orange frosted cookies down his throat before I even realized what was happening, later ate a few pickles off the plate I made him at dinner, grazed on ridiculous amounts of candy throughout the night, and finally at about 9:00 PM, right before we were about to leave, the massive birthday cake came out, complete with the singing and blowing out of candles for those with October birthdays.  

Oh and ice cream.  

Can you see why the kids look forward to this party every year??!  I mean seriously.

There were a lot of good costumes, including a whole crew of The Price is Right contestants, which I found to be quite amusing, but one of the only pictures I took was of Kari.  Ohhhh Kari, I love this crazy girl.  I guess she is a "shapeshifter tiger" (?) here.  I don't know what that means exactly, but when you asked her to show you her costume, she would crouch down like this.  (That's a robe belt holding the giant tiger on her back.)  

Goodness, I can't wait to see what kind of quirky, interesting woman this girl becomes someday, the girl who told Dan she was going to buy a cat when she grew up and moved out so that he couldn't come over (he's allergic), the girl who orchestrated a funeral for a caterpillar, complete with a musical interlude on the recorder of "Greensleeves", the girl who told us for years with complete sincerity that she was planning on naming her first child "El Charro".  

Anyway.  The party.  

My nephew Matthew, such a happy, easygoing, irresistible baby.

Truly.  Look at that smile! 

It was a late night, but lots of fun, and my little baby who normally is asleep in our room by 7:30 every night was quite the trooper, a jolly fellow really, right up until we left at 10:00 PM.  Honestly I had no idea it was that late, I think I assumed I would know when it was time to go because the children would be falling apart, but that never happened.

Monday night we had my parents over for pizza and afterwards carved pumpkins in our under-construction breezeway porch.  (There's heat in there now!  Progress!)

Carving pumpkins with small children crawling all over you is quite the challenge.  At one point Gus was 

jumping around the room and I realized he was waving around a little carving kit knife.  

Uhhh, whoops.

Dan asked Gus what shape he wanted the pumpkin's eyes to be, and he requested hexagons.  So random.

Then on actual Halloween, I prepped myself on the way home from work for an evening of "going with the flow".  No pushing.  I had decided that if Gus didn't want to be a ghost, we wouldn't make him.  We'd offer suggestions, but no more than that.  This was supposed to be fun!    

Earlier in the week we had pulled out our box of costumes and remembered we had this cape that Dan's mom gave us last year, something Dan had worn when he was just a wee one.  Well Gus was way game to try that thing on and never asked to take it off, so we were hopeful we had good plan B. 

He was all about that cape you guys.  SO EXCITED to go trick or treating, running all over the house in excitement.  It was so fun to see him so enthusiastic and enjoying himself, talking up a storm about what we were going to go do that night.  

We had fun.  Trick-or-treating didn't last long because we got to one house that was all decked out with scary ghosts and goblins and tombstones, and Gus kind of shut down.  No way was he going up to the door, and after that he was pretty much done.  We drove over to Ben and Michelle's and the kids played with toys in their basement and it was all just very low key.  

And cute.  Of course.

Rawrrrr!

We had promised my grandpa this weekend that we'd stop by with the kids, so even though it was kind of out-of-the-way, and it was already getting late, and Louie fell asleep during the 10 minute drive over there, it was worth it for this moment for my grandpa and the boys at the end of the night.   

Worth the hassle.