Halloween

This week was incredibly busy for me. I had a ton of homework and didn't have time for much else, especially factoring in Halloween festivities. Doing two classes at one time is hard - especially when you have multiple major assignments due for each on the same week! I'm almost half way done with the quarter though and this week's homework load is lighter, so I'll try to actually do something other than sit at the computer and do homework (or sit at the sewing machine and make costumes) :)

On Friday we had Beca's two youngest over to play for a while as she had a dr's appt. Jack and Jorja had so much fun playing together! They found Meg and Kylie's umbrellas and had a blast running around the house together with umbrellas over their heads. Occassionally Jorja would stop and say "MONSTERS IN THE HOUSE JACK!" and they would both point the umbrellas in front of them like guns or something to get the monsters :)


Beth spent much of Friday sitting on my lap. Made it difficult to do homework, especially as she decided we needed to do a photoshoot with the two of us. She's a cutie though and I'm so glad I have a little girl to climb up on my lap :)




Saturday morning Rob finally got to go to Muay Thai again. He hasn't been since August for various reasons. He really enjoyed it :) When he got home, we told the kids they had to clean their rooms and then we would paint pumpkins. Megan did a great job on her room and Jack helped out a bit, but Kylie and Beth were not thrilled by the prospect of having to work before doing something fun. They did everything except actually clean, which really would have taken only about 5 mins if they had both just done it. Instead they played and Kylie crawled under the bed, stuck her hand in near the mattress and announced that she was stuck. Beth spent quite a bit of time announcing to us that Kylie was stuck and then that their room was clean, which of course it wasn't as somehow rooms tend not to clean themselves merely because someone stands at the top of the stairs announcing that they are clean. We gave Kylie and Beth lots and lots of time to clean (about 1.5 hours), but they decided not to, so only Megan and Jack painted pumpkins this year. It made me feel very guilty to tell a 3 year old and a 5 year old that they couldn't paint until they cleaned their room, but I stuck to my guns :) Someday it will pay off, right? :)

Megan painted a face on her gourd first, then painted her little pumpkin with a happy face on one side and a sad face on the other. Jack discovered that the paint could move around on the cardboard palette and that if he got paint on his brush and then stuck the brush in the water, the water changed color. He smeared a bit of paint on his pumpkin and gourd and spent the rest of the time happily mixing paint and water in his cup, on his palette and on the newspaper. He also spent a fair amount of time painting various body parts, such as his tummy and his arm, making me glad I just took his clothes off instead of putting a smock on him.








We had another family over for dinner that night - a friend of mine from high school and his wife and four children. I had not really talked to him (ran into him once briefly about 8 or 9 years ago I think) since the summer after my junior year and had never met his wife or his children. We had a wonderful time! The kids loved playing together and us wives had fun talking about organic foods and reading and things like that.

We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner, then went trick or treating. Our neighborhood set up was perfect. All four adults and eight kids started out (with the dog as well, although it was discovered that Simon does not really like Halloween that much - the more decorated houses freaked him out), then Rob, Jack and Simon headed back after a few streets. One street later we passed our house and I took our girls and the youngest of their girls home. The older kids got to trick or treat longer. It was nice having the option to have some of us go home earlier without having the older kids have to stop.

I really should have taken a picture of all eight, but didn't get one. I took a picture of the five who came home first with their loot ~


After trick or treating was over, we let the kids eat as much candy as they wanted. We decided we'd rather do that then add several pieces of candy to their diet each day for the next month or two. We let them pig out again yesterday, but starting today, one to two pieces per day will be the max.

While the kids played, the moms talked and the dads played chess. The kids were really interested in the chess game and the dads ended up surrounded :)


We had a wonderful time :) It was really nice to have friends to share the night with!

All my homework got done this weekend and I am looking forward to this week where I only have four small papers, a quiz and two sections of larger projects due! This week I will be watching Forrest Gump as one of my projects is to evaluate the character of Jenny using various models of therapy.