Halloween...check.

Whew...whew.  I like to be festive, but I am so glad Halloween is finally over.  I'm just TIRED!  I think we did way more holiday-related activities than a day like Halloween deserves.  But it is what it is.

The whole Halloween-fest '09 started Tuesday, when the kids & I ventured downtown via the much-begged-to-go-on Johnstown Inclined Plane.  Truth be told, that was pretty much our favorite part of the outing.  The kids got to give the man their tickets themselves, which was just adorable.  Then I got to hide my own terror/nausea/panic and pretend that it was great fun to ride down the world's steepest incline from Westmont to downtown. Actually, seeing the kids' faces, and their total fascination with the whole experience, made it really cool.  The parade itself was fine, but we left a little early because frankly, I think even the kids were bored, and miffed that the candy thrown at them from the floats was mostly just those gross, fake-tootsie roll-flavored chewy things.  Seriously, people.  Give them something that won't sit in the bottom of the Halloween candy bowl for months and months until I finally throw it away.  Also, it was raining pretty steadily, and we were wet, tired, and cold!!!  But the kids were troopers and we had a good time.

Then it was on to Thursday, with each of the kids' Halloween parades at school, and to a pumpkin farm that evening.  By then it had stopped raining - yay! - and it was a really fun day, although packed full.  First was Nolan's preschool parade.  I sewed him a pumpkin costume that I was sure was 100% unique.  So when the kid came out the door wearing NOLAN'S COSTUME, I thought, "oh no!  they got the costumes switched...what is Nolan going to come out as???"  I put his name on the bag, but not in the costume itself.  Darn it!!! But then, another kid came out in the same costume....then Nolan came out in his costume!  I guess Simplicity 2788 is a lot more popular than I realized.  :)  Next was Abby's parade, which was too cute...it's so strange, she's such a "big girl" all of the sudden.  There she was, walking through the school's parking lot with a bunch of "big" elementary school kids - and looking like one of them.  Hard to believe.

 

THEN it was on to a local farm with a corn maze, hayride, and all kinds of fall fun.  I was so glad it didn't rain, because I'd already told the kids we were going.  We went with some of my MOPS friends and kids, and if that was the only thing we did all fall, it would have been perfectly great.  Moms & kids alike had such a great time.  And I learned that picking out your own pumpkin from a pumpkin patch is really overrated.  YUCK!  Our shoes got encrusted with mud, and we really had to pick through the pumpkins to find a decent one that didn't have "goo" on it (as Nolan liked to say).  But everything else about the little farm trip was great.

I'm getting tired just trying to recall all this.  The rest is short and sweet: we went trick-or-treating with Tyler & Uncle Mo on a VERY chilly night with two not-in-the-greatest-of-moods kids.  You do the math.   But you can't say they weren't the cutest little trick-or-treaters out there...