Hallo-week-late

I wanted to blog about our Halloween.  Then I got swept away by the crazy tide known as my life last week.  Bygones.

Halloween is my second favorite holiday of the year.  My all-time-favorite holiday of the year is July 4th.  I love the parade with the fire truck, the sun, the pool games, the keg of beer, the cookouts, and the fireworks.  There is no gift giving.  No commercialism or decorations at the mall.  There is no pressure.  No expectations.  Just happiness and hot dogs. 

I digress.

Halloween is my second favorite holiday for many reasons.  It happens three days after my birthday, so I'm usually still basking in my post-birthday bliss. 

It is a beautiful time of the year in the South -- the leaves are starting to fall and the air is turning crisp, but you still don't need much more than a fleece jacket to stay warm.  The houses are decorated with spook-tacular decorations like spiderwebs, skeletons and gravestones.  You can sense the anticipation from all school age kids as you approach this special day.  They can't wait to don their costumes and walk throughout the local neighborhoods, begging for candy (which their parents will likely surreptitiously sneak after the wee ones have drifted off to dream land). 

The front window of our house is lit by the glow of the plastic pumpkin I bought at Target years ago. 

The ghost that Goose made in pre-K hangs on the front porch, along with an array of skeletons I've amassed over the years (much to my husband's chagrin).  We have several painted pumpkins on the front steps.  The one thing we were missing this year was, however, an actual jack-o-lantern. 

Mother of the year forgot to buy a pumpkin at the pumpkin patch. 

You can imagine my surprise when we went to the Church pumpkin patch the day before Halloween only to find it completely empty.  Bare.  No.  More.  Pumpkins.  Frantically, I sent Whit to one grocery store while we headed to another. 

No.  More.  Pumpkins.

Target?  Nope.

Wal-Mart?  Surely Wal-Mart, the store that has EVERYTHING would have a pumpkin on the day before Halloween!

Apparently not.

We were a pumpkinless house this year.  I bore the burden of knowing that it was my procrastination that caused my family's lack of all things pumpkin (scooping, carving, toasting pumpkin seeds).  The shame was almost unbearable.

When she realized that we were not going to have a pumpkin at all, Goose cried.  And then she got over it. (That's my girl).  Again.  I digress.

We decided this year to trick or treat in our neighborhood.  The decision of where to go to beg for candy is momentous.  We usually go to my parents' neighborhood with my sister and her children.  It is a nice, enclosed neighborhood (no through traffic); the houses are always decorated perfectly; there are approximately 300 children running frantically throughout the neighborhood; and many people pass out FULL SIZED candy bars.  And not ghetto candy bars.  Serious candy bars.  Like Kit-Kat and Snickers.  I swoon at the mere thought.  We also like trick or treating there because, after all, it is where I went trick or treating with my brothers and sister as a child.  It is a really nice walk down memory lane, watching my Goose knock on the very same doors that I knocked on when I was her age. 

This year, however, she wanted to go with two friends from our neck of the woods.  So, we departed from our usual trick or treating routine and stayed close home.  The girls had a blast.

Goose went as a viking princess.  Her girlfriend Lucy went as a black cat and Jenna went as an Indian princess.  They were darling.  And a little scared by the bloody mermaid in the background.

Goose and Lucy posed with the pirate at this house.

Jenna.  Not so much. 

ARRRGGGHHH!!!!

Henry, as you know from my previous post, went as a sock monkey.

The mere sight of him makes me melt.

The boy was very interested in the small packages in his pumpkin.  He was not interested in sitting in his stroller.  Trick or treating with three running 8 and 9 year old girls is somewhat complicated when you have an independent sock monkey who insists on following them on his own.  His little legs can only take him so far before he loses all of his energy.

This is Henry at the end of our night.  Worn.  Out.  [Excuse the walls -- we were in the middle of a painting project.]

Our girls, on the other hand, were still teeming with energy after cruising the 'hood.

They got some serious loot.

And some not so serious loot.  Who the hell gives Nutri-Grain bars out on Halloween?

And raisins?  Pshaw.

And what the hell is a  Squeeze and Bites? 

I'll tell you what it's not.  It's not a full sized Kit-Kat bar.  We'll be headed back to my parents' neighborhood next year.  Dum-dums and raisins do not cut it.  Not on my 2nd favorite holiday of the year.

Good thing that Goose doesn't realize what a rip this is. 

She was happy.  And isn't that all that matters?