Trick-or-Treat!

I don't know about y'all, but I don't think I've ever been so glad to see November 1st in all my life.  I'm officially October'd out.  Granted, I have loved every minute of every last Fall Festival, pumpkin patch trip, Halloween party, pumpkin carving event, etc. But if October had 32 days, I might have to be committed.  Please tell me I'm not the only one?!  I think this must happen the older your children get and the more involved they are in things.  Surely so.  And while we're on the Halloween subject, how do you feel about it? I'm curious to know.  I have a sweet family member who is very dear to me who for Biblical reasons chooses not to let her family participate in Halloween.  I'm certainly respectful of that.  Our children have no clue that there's any dark or wicked connotation whatsoever.  At our house, it's not Satan's day.  We give God the glory every day, so I see nothing wrong with dressing my children up in fun costumes and going around the neighborhood filling a basket full of candy.  They genuinely think that's all there is to Halloween.  I might feel differently about it once they start seeing that there could be more to it than just that.  There's no doubt that it will happen eventually the more they're around other kids at school.  But I also firmly believe that if we're doing our job raising them right, they'll be perfectly fine and keep the focus where it should be.  And now I'm officially off my soap box...

That said, we had the best Halloween ever.  The Tourneys came over to trick-or-treat with us which always makes things crazier, louder, and "way more funner" as Buggy says.  Before they arrived, I told J we could take turns getting a picture with our little witch and Dorothy.  I always hold up my end of the deal...

 And then when I look back at the pictures he's taken, his fingers are in front of the flash and the picture is black, I'm mid-sentence, scratching my nose, or something like that.  This was the best we came away with...

 See what I mean?  God love him, he tries so hard but I don't think he needs to quit his day job!

Our neighbor, Alicia, is always so sweet to the girls.  She plays along with all their shenanigans like the other day when they left a note on her door asking her to pay $10.99 for a makeover.  We went to Auburn together and were in the same Rush group.  Years ago I was pleasantly surprised when we moved into our house and I found out that she'd be our neighbor.  Small world!  Anyway, she told me she had a special treat for Towns and Cate and that they needed to come to her house first.  So they did...

 They came away with mini OPI nail polishes from Sephora in every shade under the sun and chocolate mud masks for their faces.  The woman knows the way to their hearts, that's for sure!

Finally, it was time for the main event.  J drove a truck home for one reason alone...

 This the only way to do it when you have 7 children and you'd like to come home with all of them present and accounted for.  The daddies manned the back of the truck while the women chauffeured.  Talk about laughing until your side hurts.  I don't think I've ever laughed as hard as I did last night!  I didn't take any pictures of the actual trick-or-treating, but then again...remember how many children we were chasing?  That should speak for itself.  On a different note, have you noticed that most of our pictures lately are missing one important chick?  That would Bethany.  The girl who used to think we were pretty fun to hang out with.  The girl who will be 16 in 19 days.  She's got quite the social life now, but secretly I think that it's fabulous even though I give her a hard time about it sometimes.  She and her friends convened at a friend's house for dinner and a movie.  I don't know if she'd like me to tell you that she dressed up as a ballerina with my gorgeous, sparkly Princess Ballerina Camp "uniform".  She was pretty cute, too.  Maybe you can see her again sometime soon. :)

She did ever so kindly flatter us with joining in on the pumpkin carving Sunday afternoon...

 The girl is a genius.  She gathered all the pumpkin seeds and worked her magic on them to make the most delicious snack I've ever tasted...

 

  I still don't know exactly what she did, but I know it included cinnamon and brown sugar.  Towns even asked to take some for her lunch Monday.  Usually if it's not a Little Debbie she doesn't want it, so I was pleasantly surprised that she opted for something healthy.  Or maybe she just didn't know it was healthy.  That's probably more like it!

 We carved and colored and everything else you could think of to do to a pumpkin...

 Cate is not the child who likes to get her hands dirty.  Towns and Bethany don't mind a bit, but not Buggy.  She might be as rough and tumbled as a little girl can be, but you can forget her voluntarily getting her hands covered in "pumpkin guts"...Towns' terminology, not mine.  Until this year.  She was so proud of herself and made sure she told us several times that she was totally fine about her hands being nasty.  Baby steps.  Of course, she was in the bath tub .5 seconds after we were done because she couldn't take it any longer!

Do you ever get sentimental about knowing you're seeing your kids in a certain favorite outfit for the last time?  That's the way I was Sunday after church.  We've gotten as much use as possible out of these little dresses and they were practically wearing them as smocked shirts...

Never again will I see them all matchy, matchy in their Halloween dresses because next year it just plain and simply won't work.  It's no fun growing up...

After I cover a pumpkin patch field trip and a class Halloween party, I'll officially be able to cross October off the list.  And then, like the girls last night after they'd lasted as long as they could (and went to bed with wet hair), I might be knocked out for a day or two...

All in the name of preserving the memories, of course!