Halloween

Fact. Facebook has been the ruination of my blog. I totally take it for granted that most people who read or used to read it are friends of mine there. I know it's not true but I completely convince myself that it is and allow myself to be lazy and not post here. I hate it and it makes me sad. Oh well.

Anyway, to those of you who haven't seen these on facebook - the Halloween costumes!! You may remember Miss A wearing this same costume at 2. Miss A needed some direction with her costume this year so I suggested a Ninja. She was all on board and ordering me to "Buy the costume!!" already. Mysteriously, a short while before Halloween she announced to me that she no longer wanted to be a Ninja. When I asked her why she told me she would be embarrassed. It didn't seem to matter how much prompting I did she wouldn't tell me what had changed her mind. My guess is that when one of her peers asked her what she was dressing up as they replied in one of many ways, such as "Girls don't dress up as Ninja's." "That's weird." "What's a Ninja?" which then made her reject the costume.

I explained that I'd given her time to think about what she wanted to be before I bought her costume and that I wasn't buying another costume. I refuse to be a parent who has to come up with fifteen different costumes before Halloween because their child keeps changing their mind. I asked her if she knew much about how cool Ninja's were. She asked me to tell her about them. I relayed the tiny amount of information I had and showed her this video I found.



As you can imagine, this clinched it for her. Unfortunately, I could find toy Nunchucks so I had to settle for Katana Blades. She ended up embracing her inner Ninja which made me glad and Miss B was just happy to get "Tweets!!"







Incidentally, this video is also very cool. I'd kill for that kind of flexibility.

October Stuff in November

Here are some of the photos I never got around to posting in October.

These were taken at a local pumpkin patch. It was a beautiful day and we had lots of fun riding on the little 'pumpkin train' (incidentally the seats in said train were NOT designed for adult bottoms!) and walking through the corn maze and the spook house.(Miss A insisted we go through like, five times. One of the times as we were about to go through again a boy who looked to be about 8 came out crying. I couldn't help but wonder why it didn't bother A.) A tried out the miniature zip-line, which of course, she loved... adrenaline junkie.







Pumpkin cleaning. Mostly she just spread the "guts" on the outside of it, giving the pumpkin a "bath". A's red eye is often so nuts that I can't get rid of it.



These are pictures I took the day of A's Halloween party at preschool.







This is a picture taken at work on Halloween. It is the reason I left my camera there and didn't get any of my kids on Halloween night. Boo me. Oh well. My friend took a couple when we were at her house trick or treating. I was a 'Mod' girl, in case you were wondering. I was asked several times that day "Who's Maude?"

Most Definitely Second Best

*I think my title is inspired by my new favorite show which also happens to have the best titles ever.

Christmas is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year but Halloween is putting up some tough competition. I know some people would have a real problem with that but frankly, I don't care because we had the most glorious Halloween ever this year. I mean, can a Christmas tree compete with this?





And then there was this costume. Which I managed to find second hand and fit her to perfection. When I asked her what she wanted to dress up as several weeks back the first thing she'd said was a pumpkin. Then she had said a spider. So I bought a giant spider that I was going to use in the event that she didn't wear the pumpkin costume. The spider ended up being decoration. See right hand corner of photo.



She was so cheerful and agreeable about everything. I could say "Put your hands up in the air and smile!" and my wish was her command.



She has recently discovered the amazing joy of ringing doorbells. And then with the trick or treating - so many doorbells I can ring!



We only walked a block but I think she could have gone for hours. She was so well behaved, holding my hand and walking up to the doors while I took pictures. There was some pretty amazing decorating out there. She enjoyed it all immensely and only looked curiously at the fog machine at one house and laughed hysterically at the rather scary 'evil laughter' noise detector at another.



Even after we arrived home she was very proud of her haul and also very agreeable about my candy rationing. I admit I was rather nervous about her waking in the night having dreams about scary masks and so on but I worried for nothing. Who knew? This is a kid who tells me about her 'bad dreams' every. single. morning. So far so good.

I have always been a lover of Halloween but I think I have finally discovered the magic of how your children can make holidays even more enjoyable than you have ever experienced before.