Halloween

Halloween was a week long celebration this year.  We kicked it off at Sean's preschool St. Peters (same preschool Cohen attended) for Trunk or Treat the Friday prior to Halloween.  This year we signed up to be one of the "trunks" in trunk or treat.  That entailed buying a ton of candy, decorating our trunk and manning the station while the kids ran around from car to car in the parking lot trick or treating.  They start the evening out with a dinner in the preschool cafeteria with game stations, face painting, pictures.  All of the teachers attend and it's the sweetest thing ever.

Saturday morning we got bundled and dressed again for the 50th and France business trick or treating.  It's pretty much the way it sounds, all of the businesses down the road from our house hand candy out.  For whatever reason, I got pretty competitive about it this year.  Asher was not lasting so I made Scott take him home for a nap while Cohen, Sean and I kept going.  I love how I try to get them the most candy, and then hardly let them eat any of it.  Although if we're being honest, they each got 3 (which ends up being 5) pieces the night before and that morning.  We're pretty healthy eaters, it makes me happy to let them go big for a few days.

I had off on Halloween so I took Asher and Sean to Barnes and Noble, where we met up with Asher's daycare provider Carol (Sean goes there 1x per week) and the other daycare kiddos.  Everyone dressed up, listened to storytime and then participated in a little parade around the store to gather goodies.

I am one of 3 room reps for Cohen's classroom, so later that day I helped throw a classroom Halloween party.  This was not your typical classroom party, this thing entailed 2 meetings at the local wine bar for the room reps.  We had stations for the kids, they were super busy and content, played a large group game of BINGO and all was well.  The party ended too close to school letting out for me to go home, so of course we had to celebrate our hosting gig by heading for a drink a block from school while we waited for school to let out.  Being a room rep takes a lot of time and effort :)

After picking Cohen up from school we ate dinner, and then did neighborhood trick or treating.  We walked around the two surrounding blocks with all of our neighbors who have kids, and then met up with our other friends and their kids and went to their neighborhood.  I'm not sure that we need to celebrate Halloween in this fashion next year.  I have not posted pictures of the kids (or me) crying while trying to put 19 layers under costumes, then adding mittens, scarves, hats etc.  It got to be a little Halloween overload.

A few days later I flew to Chicago where a group of friends picked me up, and we all drove to Indianapolis for Tonia's baby shower.  She's having a girl in December!  There have been so many boys in this group, it was really fun to see the cute girly clothes she received.  We stayed in a hotel for 2 nights, and I flew back Sunday.  I had so much fun not just catching up, but really spending quality time with friends.  This weekend should be relatively low key.  Cohen is at his first "later in the eve" play date.  They told us we could pick him up at 9PM tonight and I almost choked.  These people let their kids party!  Selfishly I want my kids in bed so Scott and I can watch a movie, so I'll send Scott around 8 to go retrieve him.

I almost forgot-Sean's class led chapel at school this week.  Cohen's school starts late, so I was able to take Cohen and Asher to Sean's chapel.  I get teary eyed thinking about how excited and proud Sean was standing up doing his thing while we watched!