Halloween Week

Hurricane Sandy blew up the east coast this week, leaving us with really windy and cold weather. Luckily, it was starting to die down by Halloween and the kids still had a great time trick-or-treating and enjoying outdoor festivities that day.

Two days before the holiday was Maddux's first field trip. Her class (and all of the other Kindergartners) got to ride a school bus a little north to Cagle's Dairy Farm. Maddux got to feed a baby pig and see all kinds of farm animals. She loved it, but she did say it was very cold.

The night before Halloween, we finally carved the pumpkins. We'd held off over the weekend in hopes of some warmer weather, but when that didn't come, Lehr and Eli just carved them inside. (Maddux had an incident at school resulting in her loss of 'carving privlidges' that night.) Eli REALLY enjoyed this. We let him do the actual carving for the first time this year, and his close attention to Halloween Wars on the Food Channel paid off. He was very focused and intentional about everything he did, and he even had a story to go with the pumpkin when he was done.

Halloween night found us parading in the neighborhood with our friends and then trick-or-treating home from the pool area. Eli did complain quite a bit about his costume once we started; he was wearing the costume, carrying his candy bucket and a light saber, wearing a mask and gloves. It was too much and I think we all decided next year we would go for a 'less involved' costume. We spent most of the night with our neighbors across the street, and no one had to pay the fee for running through other people's grass this year. (Our penalty is miss two houses and give mom or dad a piece of your candy.) The kids didn't even flinch when I told them to pick their favorite seven pieces at the end of the night because we were donating the rest to the soldiers. (We did that last year too.) All in all, another great year with the Wicked Witch of the West and Darth Vader!