Halloween 2013

Our Halloween celebrations really began last weekend when we went to the Pie Nighters annual Halloween party, a group of friends from college and their little families.  There are quite a few little kids now, and so there were plenty of fun kid activities.

There was a treasure hunt complete with a treasure map, brought by our friends who were all dressed as pirates.  The kids loved it!

Then they got to shoot glowing balloon ghosts with PVC pipe guns and marshmallow bullets.  Tam really got into this one.  Yeb was all about this too, but didn't have the dexterity or patience to load the bullets, so he just ate the marshmallows and hit the ghosts with his gun.  Meanwhile, Kate was scared by all the balloons getting popped by Yeb, so she hung back a bit.

Then there was plenty of time for the kids to play while the adults chatted.  As we were leaving, both Kerry and I practically cried tears of joy that we had been able to bring our little family to something like this, and have it work out so well.  The kids all did fabulously, and there really wasn't any fallout the next day.


Yesterday we decided to make the day as laid back and normal as possible to reduce the anxiety that sometimes comes with exciting stuff.  Kate went to preschool, and had a blast wearing her costume and doing all the fun activities they had going on.  The boys and I had a regular morning, and then after an early dinner we carved pumpkins, then the kids got their costumes on and we went trick-or-treating to a couple of our close neighbors, then to the trunk-or-treat at the church.  The kids all did so well, and were excited to get candy.  We headed home and got them to bed, and were shocked that the day was so stress free for the kids.  It was about as perfect as we could have hoped for.

This is what Kerry wore to work yesterday!  It's actually his high school band
uniform (circa 1970s), and still fits, although I had to hold the keys and phone
when we went out at night because the pants were a little snug. :)  Kate
ended up thinking this was cool, but when we took the picture in the
morning she was just weirded out by how big his hat was.