Happy Halloweeeeeen!

Better late than never, eh?  :)  This year the children both chose their own costumes- with no prompting or inspiration by me.  This is a fairly big deal as I am fairly controlling.  But it was fun.  James changed his mind about a million times (he had been looking forward to Halloween since last November... the kid's obsessed), but he settled on one by October 1st and stuck with it.  First he wanted to be Frankenstein.  Then a super hero of sorts (I cannot for the life of me remember for some reason).  Then back to Frankenstein.  Then a mummy.  He settled on the mummy.  Jolie decided on what she wanted to be and never changed.  Pinkalicious.  A character from her favorite book.  A very girly, very non-scary, very pink costume.  I shouldn't have been surprised.  She is a major fan of pink.  I bought the fabric to make James' costume at the first of the month (possibly in September, even), and the suspense was killing him.  He could. Not. Wait. for Halloween! Kinda cute.  So finally, a few days before Halloween, we had a Halloween party with our neighbor friends, and I cut the material into strips and made him into a mummy.  At long last.  He looked good but not great.  Trial runs on costumes and make up are good for that reason.  Then, on Halloween, he looked awesome.  They both did.  James' mummy costume was a hit and got lots of compliments from fellow trick-or-treaters, and Jolie was possibly the most beautiful girl on the block!  I love my babies and am partial, of course, but seriously.  So cute.

It was a fun Halloween.  We got ready for trick-or-treating pretty quickly after James got home from school and Jolie got up from her nap.  We went out while it was still light, as it was just getting dark (which, sadly, is way too early nowadays). We went up and down our street, and up and down maybe one more.  My student and her husband and little boy met up with us and went around with us, which was fun.  After an hour or two of roaming the streets and collecting candy and having way too much kid-oriented fun, we came inside.  Aida and her family joined us.  We had pulled pork in the crockpot and invited them to stay for past-bedtime dinner.  They did.  The kids had so much fun playing with her baby, and we had a good time chatting and getting to know one another.  Although there was no dance party this year (bummer), it was still a great Halloween and a wonderful evening.

After our friends had left, we got the kids ready for bed.  But instead of zipping them off to bed asap as we often (try to) do, we sort of took our time and enjoyed one another.  Derek had bought dry ice earlier that afternoon to make a spooooky witches' brew, and he got the rest out to play with the kids.  It was really cute to watch.  He was teaching them, entertaining them, and bonding with them, and I just sat by and watched.  I could never see enough of that; it made me so happy.  Finally, way past bedtime and fully satisfied with our wonderful Halloween, we all hit the sack.  The next day, James was itchin' for Christmas! :)  

Happy {belated} Halloween.  I hope it was spoooooooktacularly fun!\