Because it is better late than never....
One of our favorite October events is the pumpkin carving at the club. It is Alden's favorite event because of the pumpkin carving. We let Super A pick out the template and instruct Mom in the carving while Dad runs around and chases the other hooligans.
It is Spencer's favorite activity because there is sugar. Lots of sugar.
This is also the time that Alden pretends to jump into the fountain to terrify his brother into thinking he is going to subsequently drown.
Before nightfall, we make sure to look through the telescope. Alden is always looking for Children's Hospital where he says he will be a doctor one day. He has also been enough for it to be one of his favorite places. Totally wish he didn't like it so much.
Spencer is always looking for trains.
The great thing about Halloween is that the food is totally geared towards kids. Corn Dogs, French Fries, Hot Dogs, Fried Shrimp. Awesome, unless your two youngest children refuse to eat meat. Harrison and Spencer, therefore, felt it necessary to sustain their life one more day by consuming cookies and apple juice. Alden bragged about his healthy eating by adding a caramel apple to his hamburger.
Harrison and Spencer still attend the Baptist preschool, so we cannot celebrate this pagan holiday at school. There is always a way around these slight obstacles, and the preschool finds it's route in the form of having Community Helper week. Various community helpers visited the school to Spencer's unending delight. The highlights were the fireman and train conductor, although the biggest highlight is that I can now get him to help with anything as long as I tell him he is being a community helper. On the last day, they can dress up as a community helper of their choice and then trick or treat (which sounds a lot like Halloween to me). Spencer was no doubt a "Train Man," but Harrison was a third child victim of a dig thorough the costume box for anything resembling a helper. Fisherman it was!
We decided to pair up with our best bud neighbor with our costumes. Although the parents came up with Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Wizard of Oz as great three boy plus a girl costumes, I have two opinionated boys who found pirate costumes at Costco and wouldn't budge. So, we were three pirates and a parrot. The attempt at a photo of our mates was futile. The parrot kept flying away.
The neighborhood pre-Trick or Treat dinner was a much bigger success. Even though Mom had stumbled through the Noro Virus and spent much of the week before in stomach virus hell, I was able to stumble them through a little festive evening despite illness and rain.
The kids in the hood.
Pirate excitement!
Trick or Treaking with our bests was pretty absolutely fun. The walk was short, the loot was big, and the parents actually had fun. We even approached "the scary house" where the three teenage/young adults still take hold of their parents house with things like chain saws, blood, zombies, and various body parts strews about. It is fearless Spencer's absolute favorite house on Halloween. He will do anything for candy!
Poor Harrison has succumbed to the fate of an overwhelmed Mom. He got an extra day of Mother's Day Out added in October. We actually have groceries and clean clothes now which is good, but I do miss my little buddy. He is my lunch date on his days off, but loves to go and play with his friends. Good decision all around. If I take Spencer and not Harrison to school, he says, "I want out!" and tries to unbuckle his car seat.
This is often what I find when I pick him up. According to his teachers, he plays super hard, climbs everything, teaches everybody the bad habits he has picked up from his big brothers, eats all his lunch, and then crashes.
So, sometimes random things happen. What about the afternoon that Alden put Spencer on the old mattresses in a black trash bag in the garage and said that we were playing hide the dead guy in the city dump? Um, that's not alarming or anything.
Sometimes, you catch your children in the front yard with the hamper. They are very interested in the upside down hamper and you begin to wonder what is in there.
And then you discover it is your one year old.
Tough guys, right?
This is yet another game to play. UPS man. Yep, that is the truck and that is the packages. Alden is the photographer. This was great because they were playing UPS and I thought I might be able to sit on the steps and read one magazine article. Pleeez.....the next second I looked up, happily informed about Pop Culture, there was styrofoam snow all the way down the driveway in teeny tiny pieces and flowing into the street. After an hour of clean up punishment, I gave up and let that wonderful gift to the environment take care of itself.
And then you get homework assignments like this: Bring two bugs to school for the Terrarium tomorrow. The only prerequisite is that it could not be roaches. Really? Although this sounds horrifying to me, apparently there have been people that just send in jars full of roaches to these poor teachers. So, out I go with a jar and some leaves because this ultimate boy homework is part of Mom's job. We find a centipede and a roly poly which are two bugs I can handle. Walking Alden and a friend to school a couple of days later, we find this little caterpillar on the sidewalk. They, of course, want to add it to the Terrarium so we have to carry him the rest of the half mile on our take home folder until I stole/borrowed a plastic newspaper bag from a neighbors circular in their driveway.
In more random school projects, I got the room mother charge of making field trip t-shirst for the whole class which the teacher wanted spray painted blue with a pocket attached and an owl stamp. Since I appreciate all things crafty, I was up for the challenge, but got a lot of stares with eighteen blue t-shiest laid out on the lawn with a spray bottle in hand. My grass is still blue. Joey came home and in all seriousness asked me if I was making a hopscotch grid in the grass. What? Is it weirder that he asked that or is it weirder that he thought nothing of the fact that I would be likely to do something like that?
Since that same Dad refuses to let us get a puppy, and Lucy refuse to play with my children, we go and play with other dogs in the neighborhood. "Doggy" is Harrison's favorite word. We took up a half a day visiting the white dogs and waving to them.
That about sums it up.
I am sort of liking this five year old thing. Who says it is sad when they are not babies anymore?! Check it out! He can also take the dog out, put clothes in the washer, and pick up after himself. I am not saying this all goes down without some fights, but hey, we are making major progress in some future husband training around here.
I took the boys to the community high school homecoming parade. This is what they were interested in. The sewer system.
Until this happened. We were suddenly back on track.
Because we are all about anything and everything with wheels! I have started going out of the front door instead of the garage for two reasons. One, my husband will put off cleaning out the garage until the end of time so I can't walk through it. Second, if you open the door for even a second these blurs of cherubs zoom out into the front yard riding something. On the way to school, church, or anything else where we are in a hurry. Of course, they never actually put them back in the garage, so we are going to be the luckiest people on earth if we do not have a bunch of rusted things with wheels in our garage pretty soon.
Guess who discovered pumpkins? I kept arranging them in decorative order on the front porch. This is what kept happening. Probably a much better use for them.
Three boys can now all take a bath together. Three boys in a tub. Nuf said.
Alden's school had a race. Each class ran against their own age. These kids take this very seriously and some of them actually trained for this little half mile adventure so that they could win. Yeah, we don't run around here so it was labeled a "fun run" for us. All of my worries Dad could not make it that far to accompany Alden were for nought because Alden told us that he was running with his friends not us. The one time I am going to be fine with this statement! In typical Alden, he wanted to make sure everyone was watching him run in the race and after this waving and smiling spectacle for the camera, he ran straight into the fence.
In typical 2013 generation fashion, we are ALL WINNERS of course! Everyone gets a metal!
He was very serious about showing us he could also do gymnastics.
Harrison's first haircut. It went really well. He was a trouper. And then, of course, because my kids are obsessed with all things hygiene, the other two got haircuts as well.
Perk of being room mother gets to be going on Alden's first field trip ever to the Pumpkin Patch. Hanging with his bed friend and wearing the most awesome field trip shirts ever!
Don't you know the bus ride was the absolute best part of the day!
I leave October with one more Halloween tradition of Boo at the Zoo. One more chance to wear costumes, one more chance to get candy, and one more good excuse to hang out with friends.
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Joey said the proudest he was this year was that I did not make the family do every single Halloween event possible. Well, it helped to be sick for a week, but I am just too tired people. Too tired. Because this pretty much sums up why it is December 8th and I am writing about Halloween in front of the Christmas tree:
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