Well, fresh off the thrill of finding an app to quickly edit photos on the iPad so I could blur out the identifying details on the above picture, I am finally ready to catch up a bit with Halloween and the last week or so. Shall we?
Sunday before Halloween the big kids and I carved pumpkins. We didn't do this last year, somehow, so they made sure we didn't miss the chance this year. I have to say, I was impressed with how well the two stuck with the project and even did a fair amount of the cutting themselves.
C earned brownie points by mercifully staying busy on her own and out of the way; there wasn't enough patience in my jar for a pumpkin-toddler-sharp-object mess.
And I'm glad I took a picture of the finished pumpkins as soon as they were done because I have NEVER seen jack-o-lanterns decompose so quickly. By Halloween night they were all filled with at least an inch of fuzzy mold and had to be carried to the compost with rubber gloves and the help of a bucket the next day. It was disgusting; even the warmth of South Carolina didn't take down the carved pumpkins as fast as the dampness out here did.
Anyway, Halloween itself was a rainy, low-key day at home. Amy kept hoping for something more festive but hey, there were decorations and a few trick-or-treaters and I made pizza and it was all very nice. We did our own trick-or-treating the previous afternoon, downtown, as all the shops and restaurants were participating in trick-or-treat on Main Street kind of thing. That turned out it be great fun and far better than wandering around our sketchy neighborhood in the rain on Halloween itself. As for those costumes, Amy made up her own Forest Queen persona and happily for me she put together the whole thing from dress-up stuff we had, without needing me to make or do anything. Score! William made a last minute decision to be a ninja but thanks to amazon prime we were able to pull that off for an easy $14. Caroline, like all my kids when they were under two, wanted no part of a costume or ears or anything, but did pick up on the whole trick-or-treat idea and marched along happily. Good times.
Oh, and the big kids also did a lot of their own decorating, which I thought was cute, especially since I'm really not all that into the holiday myself and have just a few token decorations that I trot out each year. William made the green ninja for the wall, and the pumpkin, and Amy painstakingly spelled out Halloween in little bits of paper.
And on Halloween night itself I surprised the kids with a big wad of glow sticks which we played with in the mostly dark living room.
So, that was that. Now I'm really happy to be in November and less than four weeks from my due date! I'm trying to check things off my list at a steady rate so that I can feel "prepared" when baby boy decides he's ready. I can't wait to meet him! My biggest worry is logistics with the other kids, especially C who doesn't sleep, uh, independently very well and is rather solidly joined to my hip most of the time. My folks are coming out for almost two weeks around my due date (and Thanksgiving, yay for having family with us for a holiday for once!) but a part of me kinda hopes to have the baby before then so I can just enjoy their company. Ah well, it'll be what it will be.
One last thing before I wrap this up - got the kids' school pictures back today which turned out really well. I'm pleased with the one I took of C, too, and I had fun looking through the accumulating years past as I put the new ones in the front of the frame.
For A and W this year's is the bottom right. Can't believe how grown up they both look! For all the candid, daily pictures I have of everybody there is still something special about the yearly 8x10 to really put all that growth and change and memories of different states and schools in perspective. What a trip.
And that concludes this longer-than-I-intended post! Happy November!
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