Halloween Round-Up

Early in October, the girls were able to paint a pumpkin. As they’ve grown, I’ve been able to ease up on my anxiety over messy art. When I was a teacher, I would purposely do messy projects with my students and would feel a little disappointed if I sent them home with their clothing completely clean. So, as a parent, I let them be messy as can be at school and held back on glitter, paint, and Play-doh at home…not completely, I’m not heartless…but now that they’re older, they have free reign on Play-doh, used all of the glitter supply in one project, and use watercolors at will.

I cleaned paint off the floor and Lily’s face, their arms and completely ditched the paints when they were done since they’d all become various shades of brown.

Our neighborhood had a Harvest Festival. There were treats, a bounce house, and a costume contest. One of our little neighbor girls won a costume prize and gave the girls some of her candy. They were thrilled. We even got Ella into a bounce house because our neighbor, Matt, was in with his daughter. Our girls love Mr. Matt and follow him around constantly. After four years of trying to get Ella in a bounce house, with no success, she willingly climbed in knowing Matt was in there, as though she’s a bounce house veteran. Always surprising me!

A local church was hosting a “Trunk or Treat” event. I’ve only recently heard of Trunk or Treat in the last few years. This was our first year participating and we will be back! The church had free hotdogs, water, and chips. There were rows upon rows of cars giving out candy. People went all out decorating their trunk and parking spots. The girls filled their candy buckets, and their candy may have then filled our trick or treat bowl…but nobody will ever know…

One weekend we drove to Marble Falls to enjoy Sweet Berry Farms. We were there just as they opened on a cool and cloudy day. This played to our advantage as usually the place is swamped. It’s been strange to be in a place where there aren’t pumpkin patches and apple orchards everywhere. No fall leaves, those didn’t appear until Thanksgiving. I’m glad we made the drove because it was awesome! Lots of photo ops. There’s so much to do, I know I’ll miss some of the activities, but you only pay for what you do, so you can really just go and have a good time. There are pumpkins, scarecrow making, bounce houses, horse rides, barrel train rides, flower picking, petting zoo, pumpkin painting, flower picking, and I’m sure more. We took lots of photos, partially because Lily was obsessed with the painted murals that have a place cut out for your head.

We enjoyed a small picnic lunch, then checked out the horse rides. Of course, the girls were in heaven. After horse rides, we walked over to the flower picking area. You pay a flat fee, they give you a disposable vase and scissors and you can pick as many flowers as you want. The girls loved walking through the field picking the prettiest flowers. There were acres upon acres of zinnias. It was like a painting.

Before we left, Lily had a recreate a photo that her BFF, Ashlyn, had taken the day before when they visited. I showed her the photo on Facebook and she was suddenly on a mission. Clearly, she’s just a shy girl who hates having her photo taken…

Once we were home from Sweet Berry Farms, the girls were rested enough to carve pumpkins. The problem with having a jack-o-lantern in Texas? You don’t have the natural refrigeration that keeps your pumpkin from looking like a Hair Club for Men client. Our pumpkins were already getting a little moldy on the insides when I cut them open. Luckily, Halloween was upon us or they definitely wouldn’t have made it another week.

Just like last year, the tolerance for pumpkin gunk was completely surprising to me. Lily could not stand it, Ella was a champ, helping to scoop out both pumpkins. Not as I would have guessed knowing their personalities and sensorial preferences. They drew the faces, I cut them, Loran made dinner. All was right in the world.

Finally, the big day rolled around. Halloween night. Our neighborhood had a pre-trick or treating party in a nearby cul-de-sac. We ate well, socialized and the children ran around. Lily totally wiped out and scraped her knee up. Matt convinced her that she was so tough that she broke the road, pointing to a divot in the vicinity of her fall. She totally ate that up. She was also pretty sure she was going to be paralyzed and miss trick-or-treating. Somehow, against all medial odds (in her mind), she managed to rally and hit up every house with speed and agility. As trick or treat time came around, the children, naturally, hit up the houses in the cul-de-sac. But, since we were partying there, nearly every child was hitting up the houses at once. One poor neighbor had just arrived, wasn’t quite ready, and suddenly his house was literally flooded by beggars – I mean trick or treaters. He was running around trying to gather his candy and basically throwing it out the door. As soon as he satisfied the crush, I’m sure he took a breath and settled in for the long haul, only, after that madness, there would be no more children. They were moving in a herd. Parents ran ahead of the mass to get their candy set up, and phone calls were made by the parents left to escort, warning those ahead of the impending crush. The crowd spread out a bit, faster ones reaching the next houses first, smaller novice treaters left behind, but it was still the perfect storm of candy collection. The rush would ascend upon your house and ten minutes later, you were left with an empty candy bowl, a few discarded wrappers and confusion. Like those grasshopper swarms you’d read about in Little House on the Prairie books. Most houses just left their candy out in a bowl out front, and the children were all civilized and polite and didn’t take it all. I was disappointed because we had way too much candy, I figured someone in the neighborhood would be sneaky and help rid us of some. Nope, all a bunch of upright citizens in the making. God bless Texas. I have to admit, trick or treating without jackets (mittens, hats, snow pants or boots) was really nice. Seeing your neighbors pass out candy from lawn chairs in their driveway as opposed to through their frosted up doors was even nicer. It was just festive!

Lily totally worked the system, not in candy collection, but in candy hauling. Why carry that increasingly heavy bucket of candy when you can get someone to do it yourself? Sure enough, Lily conned Matt into carrying her bucket for awhile, but when we put the end to that, she then conned his almost three year old daughter to help her. M was completely able to haul her own candy, and then had to help her friend. And, since she looks up to Lily, was perfectly amicable to this situation. Lily will someday rule the world.

Also surprising? The girls who are too afraid to sleep without two lights and a string of Christmas lights on in their room, were totally okay with running around the dark streets of our neighborhood. When we came upon our neighbor Dave chained to the yard that was littered with the shoes of small children and sign that said, “Beware of Cannibal”, they were totally fine. Ran right up to him because they knew there was sugar involved. Fall asleep in a pink and blue horse themed bedroom that’s fully lit while listening to “The Little Mermaid” soundtrack? Frightening. Approaching a bloodied, chained, cannibal at a dimly lit house in the dark? Cool.

Lily wanted the candy bowl, so she’s bitter. They’re waiting to hand out candy, but the crush had already been through.

Our first Texas Halloween was a success, we’re excited for more. A few days later after a weekend of binging on candy, we brought our candy to the dentist. Our four pounds of candy will go to the troops and the girls each earned two crisp new dollars. Score!