Halloween Week 2008

I'm not exactly sure when Halloween turned into a week-long celebration dripping with sugar. I suppose it was around the time that Christmas started in August. All I know is we have been Halloween partying for a week straight, and even a little before that. My kids had their fun Halloween party with Grandma and Grandpa Morton and the Webbs a few weeks ago, and that helped a lot to spread things out ... everything else was in the last 5 days. We had a Leatherwood family Halloween party Monday night. Dave and I went as Storm and Professor X from the X-Men (picture above).

We had a ward Trunk-or-Treat on Wednesday night, the school Halloween carnival Thursday night, a Trick-or-Treat Street in Pleasant Grove with the Webbs, Grandma and Grandpa Morton, and Grandma and Grandpa Tischner (what a fun surprise!) on Friday, another Trunk or Treat at the Grove Ward building in Pleasant Grove, and of course Trick or Treating Friday night. WOAH!

We let the four older boys go trick or treating on their own for a while, and they really "covered some ground" according to them without having to wait for the "old people." How rude. Dave and I stayed home and played Settlers of Catan with Melanie and Jason. It was our first time playing that game (I know, you're all shocked), and I think we got the hang of it. We'll have to play again sometime ...


So it turns out, with all of these events, we have a RIDICULOUS amount of candy. So, we're sticking with our trick of years past and stashing a bunch (2 gallon-size Ziploc bags full) of chocolate for their Christmas stockings. SSHHHHH. Don't tell. They'll never notice. Are you kidding me?!! I can't believe how much candy they have. Keep in mind, these bowls in the picture above are the biggest bowls I have. Hello?!!!


Dave didn't feel a bit bad amout scaring his poor little old patients all day with his scary mask and rotten teeth and hair. He works in a skilled nursing facility, so scaring someone "to death" is actually a valid concern. He loves Halloween. In fact, he's worse than the kids. So, I made the mistake of letting him go to the costume store alone, and this is what happened. Mental note to self, never again. Grandma Tischner apparently wasn't too scared. She's braver than me. I didn't go near him all day. That get-up gives me the creeps.




For the first time ever, the kids each picked one Halloween costume each and wore it to all corresponding Halloween events this year. Usually, we have a couple of switches at least during the week (i.e., Cinderella to a Power Ranger to a Cow Girl in three day's time last year). My kids really love to dress up, and they use their costumes year round, so I don't mind getting costumes for Halloween. However, it turns out Austin and Jackson's costumes were ridiculously expensive, so I only offered to pay half. They gladly turned over $16 each of their own allowance for these costumes. That is more than a month's worth. You can tell that they love them. We have a massive dress-up box downstairs that gets well used all year round by my kids and anyone else's kids who come over. I guess we'll just add these to the collection.




So I have to admit that I don't really like Halloween. In fact, I quite dislike. I don't like anything creepy, bloody, scary, gross, etc. I can't stand violence or gore at all. So, Halloween is not my thing. I happened to marry someone who LOVES Halloween and LOVES dressing up and LOVES scaring people, etc. and all my kids inherited this LOVE from Dave, so here I am. I do love seeing how much they love it, and I supposed that's enough for me.