Halloween 2009

Happy Halloween!
This year, our Halloween Package Deal included one stinky, kneiving, exuberant skunk, a puffy, zealous, nerd-eating marshmallow, and a patient, industrious, SUPER grandma. We sure had a fun time.

Friday night, we went to "Malloween." Yup...the mall shops put on a trick-or-treating event for the kids in town. I had NO IDEA how popular it was. Mike was working, so Mom and I piled the kiddos in the van and took off. As we were driving away, my neighbor, who has twins, laughed and told us we were nuts to go to the mall. Why? I thought. It's warm in there, and we can practice trick-or-treating.

WHOA. It was UBER-CROWDED. Like cheese curd line, state-fair crowded! There were literally thousands of people there, ushering little goblins, witches, faries, and mysteriously-clad kiddos from one store to another to get free dum dums. (I noticed a blatant absence of chocolate. It was one of those deals where "trick or treat" gets you either a tiny tootsie roll, a piece of gum, or if you're lucky, a sucker...)

The kids were great. Mary stayed in the stroller after her first piece of candy...a dum dum...her favorite...and Julia walked because, frankly, she didn't fit in the stroller in her marshmallow suit.

My skunk and marshmallow, ready for action!

Little miss skunk waits in line for her first piece of glory. The big white blob next door is Miss Marshmallow.

The girls lasted about 30 minutes of Mall O Ween. Then, miss Marshmallow was overheating and we moved on to supper at a mall restaurant.

An evil grin: I stole mommy's wallet!!!! Ha!

ANOTHER evil grin: I am the comander of this ship! Ha!

Julia is in heaven....Grandma Beth actually put money into the ride. Mommy NEVER does that. The girls didn't even know that the mall spaceship moved. Now they do. Crap. I will never carry quarters again.

Home, after a bath, reading stories with g-ma. mary is evilly grinning again. This time, I don't know what she's up to.

Halloween! Papa was master-carver. I harvested pumpkin seeds. Julia helped. Mary "helped."

Julia was grumpy because the pumpkin was making her itchy. She started chucking pumpkin guts around the kitchen and got a stern look from mommy. That's when grandma took the picture. This is the stern look that I got in return for the one I gave.

Evil vampire teeth!

Thar she blows! Julia in her SMarshmallow suit. This year, we asked her what she wanted to be for halloween. We offered typical things: a princess, tinkerbell, a fairy, a witch, etc. Nope. Without question, she wanted to be a "smarshmallow." All righty, then. Papa went to the fabric store and bought out their white fleece and six bags of polyester fiber fill. Let's just say she didn't get cold that night.

A picture with grandma!

My skunk. Notice the dum dum in her hand. She spent the entire evening eating suckers. Mary was actually able to carry her candy bag AND eat a sucker at the same time! What skill!

Family picture. That's the rest of us there behind that marshmallow-child.

Ready for action!

Aidan and Sawyer, our neighbor's twin boys. They were our first trick-or-treaters.

Trick or treat!!!