The morning of Halloween, I let the kids carve some more pumpkins. The pumpkin Jacob carved at the beginning of this month was a gift from a neighbor and had already rotted. Jacob traced the goblin pattern and carved his pumpkin entirely on his own while I helped Ryan carve a bat pumpkin:
Here are my little monsters: Hulk, monkey, and dinosaur:
Ryan does not have a poker face at all. His expression simply could not mask the fact that, at that very moment in time, he desperately wanted a new family.
But then Hulk made him laugh and he forgot his deep-set turmoils and we had a lovely time trick or treating in the middle of the day.
We left the house at 2 to do trick or treating in the downtown of our new city. It was the first time I'd had the opportunity to explore the waterfront downtown. I love the idea of daytime trick or treating. The kids had a blast. And the downtown was cute and adorable and all decked out for Halloween.
I discovered three bookstores, a quilt/fabric shop (yay!), an old timey-ish general store, and many other shops to which I shall be returning on a rare, childfree day. The general store has a DRIVE THRU. For groceries. This is so amazing. I can't even tell you how many times I had wished that our local grocery store had a drive thru so that I could grab a gallon of milk on the way home without trudging three sleeping children in/out of car seats and down multiple store aisles. It's like the universe heard me!
It rained 99% of the day on Halloween, but like true Northwesterners, we put on our rainboots, grabbed an umbrella and marched onward with our plans without batting an eye. No one complained once. And the rain did NOT stop us from having fun and filling our bright orange pumpkins to the brim with candy.
I held Jon in his monkey costume as we marched from business to business to ensure that his bucket was also filled to the brim. Because the privilege of trick or treating is one of the many automatic childhood privileges bestowed upon you when you become a parent.
Me: did not dress up. Have already eaten 2/3 of Jon's candy.
My cute little trick or treaters braving the rain:
Jon was wide awake in this picture but he looks like he was in mid-sugar coma.
Jon had been crabby off and on for four days with a fever here and there. I thought it was a side effect of his one year immunizations. I did NOT want to be the mom who took her kid to urgent care over a low grade fever. So I let it play out. HA. Almost a week later I finally took him to urgent care and he had a whopper of an ear infection. My poor, poor, overlooked third child. He's been a big ball of sadness and crabbiness the past two days.
But he was such a good trooper on Halloween and made one heck of a cute monkey. I had so much fun carrying him around down and watching him point and exclaim at everything in excitement.
After trick or treating downtown we went to our neighbor's house for dinner and a Halloween party. It continue to downpour but this did not stop the kids and dads from doing one more round of trick or treating in the neighborhood.
As we were wrapping up our visit with the neighbors Ryan fell asleep on my outstretched legs. I picked him up and set them on their couch. The second I did that, he immediately spewed five packages worth of fruit snack vomit all over the carpet and couch cushions, his pants, and me. The neighbors wouldn't even let me help clean it up but insisted I take Ryan home and take care of him. I'm still trying to think of a good "sorry my kid vomited all over your couch" gift. But I think a gift basket is in order.
I cleaned up Ryan and we put the two little kids to bed. Then I made a fire in the fireplace and Jacob and I sorted his candy and played a game of chess fireside.
It was an absolute perfect day and even a little bit of vomit and ear infection could not mar what had otherwise been a wonderfully magical Halloween!
Trick-R-Treat!!!
Here's some cool flaming pumpkins we saw downtown:
