I will have to admit, I am a Halloween "Scrooge". I don't really look forward to this holiday with all the scary, gory decorations, and the costume headache. I don't like spending time and money on costumes that will most likely only be worn once, and find myself in an onery mood whenever I think about it. The month of October usually goes by very quickly for me because I know Halloween is coming up at the end. I usually prefer to make the kids' costumes (which is where the stress comes from), and not knowing how to sew very well, I dread the job. I try to start gathering costume parts early to avoid the last minute scramble, but inevitably I procrastinate and am still finishing some last details the night before.
I have found the day of Halloween to be an overall busy day for moms. Before school you have all the costume business. Later in the morning there is usually a parade at the school, which means mom shows up with the camera, sits in the gym for over a half an hour waiting and waiting, while the preschool aged kids run around and around and around the gym. When the parade finally gets to you, you get to see your kid for a split second as he jogs by. You are lucky to get a picture, but most of the time you have to stop the parade for a second for a photo, which makes a gap in the line, causing the kids to run to catch up with their class, thus the jog-by photos. Then, there are the class parties that most moms end up helping with in one form or another. Some years are worse than others depending on which box you checked at "Back-to-School Night". After school the kids are constantly pressuring moms for dinner to get ready so they can go trick-or-treating. Chili has been our traditional Halloween dinner for years since this would be the only time I could get them to actually eat it with trick-or-treating dangling before them. Once dinner is finally ready (which usually takes longer than usual, for some reason), there is the whining and complaining and negotiating of the number of bites to be done. It's the worst feeling ever as a kid to be eating dinner while trick-or-treaters are coming to your door. After dinner mom and the kids are out the door for an hour or two. Or, mom stays home and passes out candy, walking to the door 50 times. Once the kids come home, it's candy, candy, candy, undressing everyone from their costumes, which usually involves washing off make-up, etc., then on to the regular night routine. By the time mom falls into bed, she has been on her feet all day going from one thing to another. It's one of the busiest holidays for moms. You would think Christmas would top the list, but most of the work is done before the actual day and you get to actually sit back and relax a little on Christmas Day.
All of this being said, I will have to admit that I had a good time this year. I dressed up for the first time (as a witch, what else?), which the kids really got a kick out of. After the initial costume headache had subsided, I actually enjoyed making the last minute details. This year our school told parents to come to the gym a half hour after the parade stared to avoid the long wait, Dallin's class party went better than I had imagined, and I bagged the chili and made Potato Cheese Broccoli soup, which my kids love and takes a fraction of the time to make. There was still the negotiating of bites for dinner to be done, but not nearly as bad. Leon took the kids trick-or-treating while I stayed home and passed out candy. Not wanting to go up and down the stairs to answer the door every ten minutes, I stayed in the kitchen and cleaned. At the end of the night, my kitchen was SPOTLEESS, with no clutter piles or anything! Trick-or-treating ended earlier than usual since they had gotten an earlier start. They dumped out all their candy, sorted it into piles, did the usually trading, and ate their fair share. (What's great about them being little is they prefer "Tootsie Rolls" and anything that resembles an eyeball over "Snickers" or "Reece's Peanut Butter Cups". With it being Friday, we let them watch a movie before bed, with their candy bags by their side.
I can't wait for them to go back to school on Monday so I can raid their candy bags while they are gone. Now that Halloween is over, it's on to the next holiday!
Jayden the Pirate, Cameron the Bat, Dallin as Indiana Jones, and Landon the Ninja.
Don't tell my kids, but I consider "leaf raking time" as a chance to get some free child labor out of them. They think it's too much fun to consider it work, I guess.
After the dinosaur park we found a couple of geocaches in a park nearby. The kids sure love geocaching. It's like a treasure hunt where you have no idea what the treasure will be or what it will look like. Another group found these same geocaches earlier in the day and left some LAME, girly stickers, so the "treasure" wasn't all that exciting this time. But, the kids always enjoy the thrill of the hunt just as much as the "treasure" at the end. 
