Happy **I Need a Drink** Halloween

Let's just start this off by saying that our Halloween evening didn't start out full of sunshine and happiness. This was Day Two of the fall school conference, meaning second day in a row of no school. I love my children dearly but for some reason lately they seem to feel my existence is purely to entertain, clothe, feed, pick up after and cater to their whims. So when it was time to start getting my children dressed and ready for our neighborhood chili dinner prior to trick-or-treating, I was already tired, drained and a bit miffed. I told them it wasn't nice to ME to make me a mean crabby mom. Yeah, I know, we make our own happiness, yada, yada, yada.

But we all got dressed, Julia's hair straightened, corn bread made and put into bowls, gathered TWO cameras and headed on over at 5:00. It was a beautiful day here; warm and sunny so my mood couldn't help but get better.

Here is Emma dressed as a fairy. She is not a head band kind of girl and we have caught her in the act of starting to remove the offending accessory.

Ryan was knight. He wasn't sure he liked this costume until he realized that he got to carry around Julia's pirate sword. My goal had been to have Ryan and Emma's costumes match some how. I never came up with anything brilliant (I save my brilliance for my blog-- LOL!!!) but a knight and fairy go well together... I think.

Jenna was so busy running around with her friend Kendall that I realized after I uploaded my pictures that I never got a full shot of her costume. UGH! But here's a picture of her running off. She's in the light pink leotard and tights and cream colored skirt. She was an ice skater.

Julia was supposed to be a pirate. She even had TWO costumes to chose from. But a pirate is not a girly girl costume so she spent the day coming up with a new costume. I told her I wouldn't spend one dime more, that she had to find things around the house. She ended up going as a prom queen. You'll see a better shot of her in a minute. I just love this photo of her with Emma.

The girls also decided that I needed to dress up as well. I'm sure that you don't find it hard to believe that I do dress up for Halloween. I just didn't have a plan for this year so the girls raided my closet and decided that I needed to go as a super model. They found a fancy dress they wanted me to wear along with a pair of 3 inch heels. For some reason I didn't feel confident in pulling the super model look off. The good news was that the dress actually fit!!!

So I played it totally ultra boring and safe this year. First I told them I was a best selling author. Later I told them I was Stephenie Meyer, the author of the Twilight series. I had to go with Stephenie rather than Kay Bratt, my other favorite author, because Kay is blond and I am obviously not. I thought the sun glasses really helped pull it all together.

I find our block parties or even hanging outside to sometimes be somewhat stressful. Emma still doesn't walk well so she's crawling around scuffing her shoes and wearing holes in her pants. Tonight was no exception. I spent pre-dinner chasing her around, keeping her from putting various objects on the ground into her mouth and watching as she climbed all over a children's table. Then it was time to eat.

Let me ask you, have you ever tried to get food for 3 small children while holding a baby on your hip who grabs everything in reach. Throw in a 5 year old girl who thinks that she can eat only a handful of chips for dinner and 2 year old who only wanted a hot dog. But it only got better.

Jenna sat at this table.

Jenna sat on the other side of the driveway with Kendall.

Julia sat in a chair in the drive way.

And Ryan sat at another table closer to Emma. I got to run from child to child, the 3 younger children anyway, checking on them and making sure they weren't climbing on the table (Emma), eating other people's food off their plate (Emma and Ryan) and that they were actually eating their food (Jenna.) You would think that with all that running around that I wouldn't get a chance to eat but never fear. I ate plenty. I have to tell you that at one point as I was running around I thought to myself "Why am I stressing myself out like this?" but the happy looks on those children's faces made it pretty clear why I did it. They were happy and making happy memories. I was burning an extra 50 calories and inching myself closer to high blood pressure.

Then it was time for Trick-or-Treating.

I took the Big Boy camera back home and got the stroller so I didn't have to carry Emma around. I also needed to retrieve the trick-or-treat buckets and we were off.

We ended up going around with Kendall, much to Jenna's delight. We started out with most of the kids on the cul-de-sac but Ryan was pretty slow and soon the bigger kids took off without us.

Ryan really had no clue what all of this was about but it only took him one house to figure out that it was a good thing. Smart boy.

We walked around a couple of streets. Ryan was impossibly slow, Emma was getting restless in the stroller and at one point I turned to Kendall's dad and told him I had the title of this post already figured out. Happy ** I Need a Drink** Halloween It was no surprise that by the time we got close to our street Kendall's dad offered to let Jenna continue on with them so we could go home. Julia ran on home to turn on the porch light and pass out candy while I took the babies to a couple of other houses on our street. At the last house my neighbor opened the door and and asked me if I wanted to come in and have a drink. She told me that I looked like I needed one. Was it that obvious?

I guess Halloween wishes do come true.



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Edited Saturday morning at 9:30: I did want to add that the children were oblivious to my stress. They just had a good time. I was unhappy the I wasn't having a good time.