H is for Halloween

I know that Halloween is technically not until tomorrow, but we've already been celebrating here for days. Friday night was the ward Trunk or Treat. It was cold and a bit snowy, but the kids had a grand time running from car to car in the church parking lot for the trick or treating. Rylen was a little confused at first, but quickly figured out that if he held out his bucket, people would put candy into it!

When we got home Friday night we dumped everyone's candy into the communal candy bowl (everyone has to share the haul at our house). They all got to eat a few pieces as a bedtime treat, then we put the bowl up on the counter out of reach. Or so we thought... until Saturday morning. That's when Rylen got up early (or at least earlier than Mom and Dad), dragged a chair into the kitchen, and climbed up to the candy bowl to help himself to copious amounts of chocolate.

Aaron had a rare Saturday off work, so we actually got to have a family day! So as if the candy from Trunk or Treat wasn't enough, we took the kids to Trick or Treat Street at the local high school on Saturday afternoon. We haven't been before, but I was really impressed by this. There are lots of local businesses and families who set up booths in the halls of the high school - complete with funny or spooky decorations, costumes, even some little games to play. And all of them hand out candy to the kids. It was very fun.

Next was a trip to the American Legion Hall for the haunted house. For the first hour of operation it was advertised as "lights on, not scary." We opted to go for the lights on version, though Haley and Preston told us repeatedly that they wanted to go to the scary version. We eventually convinced them to try the non-scary version first and then we would discuss going through again with lights out. Turns out that the lights on version was plenty scary enough for them! No one insisted on going through again with the lights out. :)

We finished up the evening with a Halloween dance at the elementary school. I wasn't really sure that the kids would enjoy a dance, but they had lots of fun. A dance for elementary schoolers involves a lot of jumping up and down, a lot of running around randomly, and a lot of Taylor Swift. (Seriously, I think about every other song they played was by Taylor Swift.) It was fun to watch the kids dance around and dance with them (thankfully the lights were low so no one could see my lame dancing). Aaron was even dragged onto the dance floor a time or two (under much protest).

I have to admit that the highlight of the dance was totally unrelated to my own kids... there were some older (high school) kids at the dance, too. I'm not quite sure why they came, since most of them spent the entire evening sitting on the bleachers and texting. There was one couple there in matching Navy costumes. He looked quite distinguished in a set of immaculate dress whites. She looked fairly trampy in a very non-standard Navy uniform (skin tight, low cut, short skirt... seriously, why does every costume for girls have to be slutty?). They were sitting on the bleachers with his arm around her shoulders. I happened to be looking over at them when he decided to drop his hand a little lower and give one of her breasts a healthy squeeze. Even as I was thinking to myself: "For heaven's sake, there are little kids all around you!" there was a lull in the music and in the momentary silence a little voice piped up:

"Mommy! That boy just squeezed that girl's booby! That isn't appropriate, is it?"

Awesome. I could not have possibly said it better myself, kiddo. :)


The Halloween extravaganza will continue tomorrow with parties at school. And I'm working at home so that I can pick them all up from school and take them to my work and Aaron's work for trick or treating. Followed by free kids meals at Chik-Fil-A for kids in costume. Followed by the actual official trick or treating. Whew! What a celebration.