Emily and Jane Let it Go

Halloween happened again this year.

With both kids in school, I thought maybe I should go to Jane's class party since Emily has had one of us there for the majority of parties for the last three years. 

Chris ended up agreeing to go to Emily's party nonetheless. 

And wound up with the assignment of decorations... which he excelled at. 

From what I hear there was some pumpkin volcano action. Pretty wild party...

I attended the Kindergarten party. Anything that involves 20 - 5 year olds is bound to be wild. In the background is Grandma Mimi. She has been class grandma to one of my girls for several years now. We love her. 

The night before Halloween we carved pumpkins. We had an anti-Pinterest Halloween. Jane drew on her pumpkin...

and then I cut it out. After which she cleaned off the marker for about 15 minutes straight. That pumpkin was as clean as a whistle. 

Emily carved her own pumpkin...

splendidly.

One of our neighbors told me that she loved the pumpkins because you could tell our kids had done them themselves. Lovely compliment I think. 

My favorite part of simple pumpkin carving is that it only took about half an hour, leaving us plenty of time for Charlie Brown. 

And finally came the trick or treating. Yeah, they're both Elsa. Yeah, so was half the neighborhood. I like to let my girls be whatever it is they want. Even if it is the same thing everyone else is. 

I carried Emily's jacket. She didn't put it on all night long. 2.5 hours of trick or treating in 40° weather and no jacket. That is dedication. 

I wore a coat and switched off halfway through with Chris. At which point I got to answer the door. I love trick or treating because it's the only time you see some neighbors. Unless you're super social, which I am not. This leads to some interesting situations like:

There was one guy who came to our door. He had his daughter with him. He was all of thirty, wearing a full beard and... an Elsa costume complete with long blond wig. He held out a bucket. He told me the candy was for his infant son. Riiiight.... I hope that baby enjoys that peanut butter cup (mashed up with a little banana and a squirt of breastmilk) in two months... when he's allowed solids. I gave him candy anyway.

I also got to see the kids of a gal whom I didn't immediately recognize because she unfriended me on Facebook. Not that I minded giving them candy... but their mom also sent them up the driveway with a card for the beauty products line she peddles. I have no idea what I did to offend her but apparently she's willing to talk to me if I'm putting in an order for skin cream. Welcome to classy town...

Other than that it was mainly an adorable parade of kids. We went through 420 pieces of candy. (notice I did not say "handed out" - we love to share in the delights of the season). Just before 9, as the kids started to get really big, we ran out of candy and called it a night. 

The kids had a pretty good haul. That's a lot of candy. 

As a postscript to Halloween, I decided to wash my winter coat after I was done. It hadn't been washed since last spring and it was a bit stale. So I threw it in the wash... with my phone still in the pocket. That was the day that we found out phone insurance is worthless. We also found out you can get a perfectly decent phone on Amazon for $80. My phone has been buried in rice for 2 days and is finally to the point where it will turn on. But then the screen keeps flashing off and on every 2 seconds. Lessons learned: DON'T wash your phone. DON'T pay for phone insurance. You're welcome.