What a Fabulous Halloween!!!

Yes! We have broken the horrible Halloween spell. Aside from a few bumps & bruises, our week went off without a hitch.

Before I start, when I say "bumps and bruises", this is what I mean:


Friday morning, a friend rear ended me on my way back from taking Caleb to Clinton Park. Later in the day, Collin opened the gate on the deck to let Claire into the back yard. What a gentleman! Only, she doesn't know how to get down those stairs yet. She took a tumble. Both accidents could have been much worse than they were. So, I'm thinking Halloween this year was a success.

Busy doesn't quite seem to adequately describe our week. Most days, we were rushing from one thing to the other. Both boys had soccer Monday night and Tuesday night. Halloween began very early Wednesday with Collin's costume carnival at his preschool and remained in full gear until mid-morning on Friday.

Wednesday evening, we had our church carnival which I thought was very well done. The boys had a great time -- all three of my boys had a great time. Scotty spent the last 20 minutes or so in the dunking booth and was dunked many times -- three of which by his own boys. Even Collin managed to get the ball to the bull's eye. The Ninjas had good aim.

Our mayor changed Clinton's trick-or-treat night to Thursday rather than Friday due to Clinton's homecoming. One of Scotty's fellow staff members at FBC invited us over for supper and a hay ride. So, after attending the Homecoming parade Thursday afternoon, we set out for Mr. Jim's house for Halloween. I'm pretty sure I had as much fun as the kids.

His neighborhood is apparently THE neighborhood for trick-or-treating. Even though I have lived in Clinton for 15 years, I did not know about this fact. The streets were lined with families just like I remember Halloween as a kid. Since our children were born, we always joined in the fun at the local church carnivals because it seemed that is what everyone was doing. But, honestly, I did so with a little bit of frustration, because I missed good, old fashioned Halloween. So, needless to say, as we rode through Old Vineyard in our very own hay ride, I was happy to see Halloween making a come back.

On Friday morning, I went to Caleb's school to do his class Halloween party. He has a wonderful teacher who has this kindergarten thing down to an art, so my job was pretty easy. Scotty took Collin to his new preschool for trunk-or-treating.

In case you've lost count, we attended 6 different events where candy was being handed out. We are loaded down. And, if I don't quit hitting the candy stash after the kids have gone to bed, it's not going to last more than a week.

Last night, we enjoyed a quiet night at home and it was quite nice after being on the run all week. I bought the game, Perfection, at Walmart while I was shopping yesterday. I also bought a discounted cake (because we NEEDED more sugar) that was decorated like Frankenstein. We had a family Halloween party and all children were asleep by 7:30. PERFECTION!!

I know that there are different opinions of Halloween and that is fine. But, for us, it was a week of fun, friends and family. I had to pause several times during all of it to be thankful for such gifts. So, for me, Halloween is what we make it. And, I was glad to see my children get to enjoy one of my fondest childhood memories.

"The earth is the LORD's and everything in it." Psalm24:1