Halloween

Our kids love holidays. Especially Emma. And yes, I know, all kids probably love holidays, but ours get really excited for them and especially especially Emma. So I had told them we could do something special for breakfast on Halloween - like make pumpkin pancakes or go get pumpkin donuts. But I didn't really plan it out well. 

I was going to run from 6-8 in the morning and get my haircut at 9 so I figured as soon as I got back from the run, we could go get donuts. But we ended up not going on the run til almost 6:40...and I didn't get home til 8:45. So, no special breakfast. I hadn't told Dallas my plan so he just gave them cold cereal. Sigh. Thankfully, my kids are really understanding and forgiving. Emma said, "It's okay - we can do a special breakfast next Saturday!" Sweet girl. 

We'd also hoped to go to a friend's baseball game at 11 and maybe to the library at 12 for a little drive-thru trick or treat (and to drop off way over-due books). But none of that happened. I don't remember why...there were some naps that needed to happen between the babes and Lucy. Also, Dallas hadn't been able to make his pie while I was running and getting my haircut so that still needed to get done. And after my haircut I realized I don't own any gel and I still wanted to find a long-sleeve black shirt for Emma's costume and maybe look at some clothes for family pictures that were happening today...

So, in case you're wondering - baseball game and library didn't happen. Instead, once we got Lucy down for a nap and the babies fed, Alice and I headed out on errands while Emma stayed to help Dallas with the pies and the babies. Alice was so excited to go shopping. We ended up getting two types of gel and some eye shadow. She has been wanting eye shadow ever since she saw it on Elsa and when she saw my sister Renae putting some on this summer. I know next to nothing about make-up so we'll see how this goes. 

We came home to a happy Dallas and babies and some delicious-looking and scrumptious-smelling pumpkin pies. 

That's when Emma reminded me they hadn't really had lunch yet and we hadn't used the halloween tablecloth we'd gotten at the Dollar Store a few weeks ago. Oops. I felt disappointed I hadn't really done anything Halloween-y and the day was already more than half over. So here's a semi-halloween-y lunch. Just some normal sandwiches haphazardly cut into pumpkins. Ah well. The kids were good sports and happy for pumpkin-shaped sandwiches. And when they were still hungry, they ate the crust as if it were the vines from the pumpkins.

As soon as late-lunch finished, we started the mad dash around the house. We needed to figure out what to wear for pictures at 4 p.m. AND we needed to find the missing kitty-cat ears for Lucy's costume. And our house was a DISASTER today. I feel like we're generally relatively good about not letting things get to disaster stage, but somehow disaster stage snuck up on us. Those kitty ears could be ANYWHERE. But priorities - what the heck were we going to wear for our pictures? Again, something I should have planned earlier. We found some stuff and I think it worked out. We changed Lucy's outfit last minute and looking at the pictures, I wish I had worn something maroon like Lucy but oh well. At least we got pictures! 

The girls and the babies were all such great sports for the pictures. And we got home with plenty of time to get dressed for trick-or-treating and make some cornbread...which was their dinner. As you can see, we never found the black kitty ears, but Lucy ended up really loving these pink ones, so it all worked out. 

We had talked about making the babies into mice...but with all the other hulla-ba-loo that didn't happen. :/

Here's the kiddos with friends from the neighborhood. I know I've said this before..but we are SO LUCKY to have so many great people living next to us. 

So, all-in-all it was a good day. The girls went to bed asking when Halloween would be back again. Ending with dressing up, trick-or-treating, and spending time with friends certainly overshadowed all the little things I'd not done earlier in the day. I also really love that all the girls chose a simple costume and that they were SO excited about it! And I love that they still always want to do whatever their sisters are doing. 

Take home message for me: plan and prepare. I feel like this has been a weakness all my life. My mom would joke with me that I "fly by the seat of my pants" yet somehow things always work out. But I don't want things to just work out - I want them to be AWESOME! So today I told the girls I really want to work on planning. Whenever there's something I need to remember or work on, I tell the girls. They never let me forget. I asked them to remind me to plan before I left their room at night. Sure enough, tonight, after getting the girls ready for bed, Emma said, "Mommy! You have to go plan! You can come back and check on us in 20 minutes after you plan." Sweet Emma. Thanks for helping me out.