Hosting Our First Thanksgiving!

Pin It This weekend was planned to be dedicated toward preparing for Thanksgiving. It’ll be our first Thanksgiving hosting the holiday dinner at our house! How super exciting is that? I told Spencer yesterday that I’ve never been so exciting for Thanksgiving in my life. When you’re a kid, well, thanksgiving just isn’t all that exciting - just one holiday closer to Christmas… And when you’re an adult, well, it’s really just a big pain in the neck; especially if you have children. And if you have children over whom you share custody, forget about it! It’s supposed to be a time to relax and enjoy family… But which family? You certainly can’t choose just one set of parents to visit, so we’re all forced to go trotting all over hell and high water with exhausted, uncomfortably dressed children to eighteen different celebrations. Then you have to schedule it out with each set of cooking mothers, all the while my two brothers with their wives are doing the same thing between two sets of parents and Spencer’s 3 siblings are all doing the same to his. If you’re lucky enough to get two times close enough apart, one of them is starting early, which you’re rushing to get through and leaving early from, only to get to a second one where you pick at a few things for the sake of being polite and leave at some ridiculous time of night with a stomach ache and cranky children who probably skipped their nap, only to get a few hours of sleep before having to return to work early the next morning.

I’m dedicating this year to making Thanksgiving everything that it’s supposed to be for our family and for our guests. I’m not shooting for the stars or anything, since it’s my first time. I’m only having my brother, his wife, their kids and my grandmother over. And the menu is staying pretty simple. Turkey, cornbread stuffing, homemade mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, peas, cranberry sauce, rolls and of course, gravy. For desert, a pumpkin spice roll and homemade pumpkin pies. The only things that I haven’t already made before are the turkey and the desserts, so I don’t think that the cooking part will be too terribly difficult. Mostly, though, I just want it to be a fun, relaxing day for everyone. Spencer and I bought a kegerater so that we’ll have beer on tap for the men (and the cook) to enjoy throughout the day while the food is cooking. It’s in the basement with the big screen T.V. where we want to set the kids up with either the parade on T.V. or some cool videogames. We’ll keep the zune going with music from the basement and we’ll also set out a bunch of coloring books and crayons for the kids to occupy themselves with, too. That should keep them for the most part out of the kitchen, and right where my brother and Spencer are going to be, anyway so that they’ll be kept watch over. We’re going to have little candy dishes set up throughout the house for the kids to munch on, as well as some bar-type snacks for anyone who’ll be drinking, and of course, coffee for my grandmother. We’re lucky that we’re hosting this year out of necessity, because it takes some of the pressure off, just making it fun. The only reason we’re doing it is because my parents (who host a big dinner every year) are going to Indiana, leaving my brother’s family and especially my grandmother with nowhere else to go. If I were making a big deal of hosting my first thanksgiving and asking people to make one more stop on their list of holiday dinners to go to, I’d feel a lot more obligated to make it worth their while for the short, aggravating time that they’d be here before they’d have to leave to go somewhere else. But since this is going to be where everybody spends their entire day, I want to make it the best that it can possibly be. No pressure to be polite to in-laws and socialize with extended family, no pressure to make sure that all of the kids look perfectly pristine, no rushing, no hassle… just a good time.

So this weekend we busted our butts to get as much done in preparation as we could. We borrowed my mom’s really nice, long dining room table and we have that one, plus our normal 4-seater dining room table set up in our dining room right now. We started out the weekend by finishing the paint job in the dining room. Spencer installed new shoe molding around all of the baseboards, then installed a chair rail, then we puttied all of the nail holes and patched up a hole that had been cut out of the wall before Spencer bought the house, and we painted the whole room. We stained and put up new outlet covers and threshold plates, and Spencer installed a much nicer dimmer in the dining room than the one that we had before, whose switch kept falling off. We painted shelves and did a small amount of redecorating. We bought most of the food and a few new things to spruce up the place, like new placemats (vinyl ones for the kids so that they don’t mess up the nice bamboo ones that we use), candles, a set of nice, matching, inconspicuously plastic glassware, and some cooking utensils that we didn’t have already. Back at home, we cleaned and repainted the bathroom ceiling, scrubbed the floors and I spent a good, long while taking up paint splatter left on the hardwood floor from before Spencer bought the house. I also cleaned out the fridge, the basement and the coat closet, and we finally moved Matthew’s playpen out of the dining room and down to the basement. It was tough to get so much done this weekend because we had out first major Christmas shopping trip Saturday night while Mary was spending the night with her mom, and on Sunday I had my confirmation at church, which we celebrated with cake afterwards. We didn’t get everything done that we were planning to, but I’m still surprised at how much we were able to accomplish, considering. Just cleaning up from all of the painting and sanding and sawing and nailing projects that we had going on was a feat.

Now that the projects are done, I can focus on the fun part: just making it pretty! I want the house to shine, like something from out of a magazine. I set the table up already (yes, that’s how overzealous I am) just to see how it will all look when everyone starts filing in. We have flowers and candles and pretty placemats. I love it. I’ve been looking up tips on what little touches can be done to add “flair” to your home on the holidays and I’ve been doing just about everything that I have time to. One thing that my friend Katy did for a picnic themed party that she had at her house was wrapped the silverware in napkins and fastened them closed with cute stickers. I got little fall decorative napkins and I think I’ll do the same thing, but obviously with Thanksgiving themed stickers. We’re also going to set out our nice, wine glasses that take up space in our china cabinet that we have never, ever come even close to using before and use them for everybody’s water glass. How precious!?

We finished up the weekend by having dinner in our newly finishing dining room and snuggling up with the kids to watch The Grinch in our room. I can’t believe that Monday morning is here again already. There are still a lot of things left to do. At work and at home. This week at work I’m going to be doing a lot of painting again. The kids’ father is home from work so that’ll give me some time to finish off the last of the murals and shelf painting that I’ve started. Since he’ll be able to help occupy the kids especially while they’re off from school for the holiday, I really want to get all of my projects completed within the next few days. As far as Thanksgiving we still need a few things that I’m going to be giving my sister-in-law a list to go get for us. I’m going to make the desserts ahead of time, and we still need to go buy a booster seat for Matthew now that he’s completely outgrown his high chair. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

The Family Circus

Pin It

Settling in after a long, hard day of temper tantrums, daycare bullying and parent manipulation...

After work yesterday Spencer and I were so psyched about getting started with the next project that he offered to go out to Home Depot right then so that we could start installing the chair rail around the dining room that night. The miter saw has to go back to his dad soon and we wanted to make sure that if nothing else, at least the dining room was finished for the sake of us hosting our first Thanksgiving in two weeks.
Matthew dedicated himself to being a terror the whole time that his dad was gone. Mary asked me to fix the zipper on her jacket - which took me until after she’d gone to bed for me to actually get to because Matthew’s meltdowns demanded so much of my attention. He wasn’t going to calm down until he had a nice, warm bath so the honey glazed chicken and casserole dinner I promised Spencer was going to have to wait. Spencer called to ask a bunch of questions about what kind of speckle we used last time - so I had Mary help me to keep an eye on Matthew while I tried to concentrate on both tasks at once. In the mean time, Matthew discovered how much fun it was to fill his little hair-rinsing bucket with water and dump it outside of the tub… Mary started screaming at him to stop, while he laughed wildly at all of the commotion… I yelled at both of them unintentionally right into the receiver of the phone and Spencer hung up. It would have made a lovely Norman Rockwell painting.

We all survived bath time, but not before Matthew peed on the freshly washed bath rug. The kids settled on some Campbell’s chicken noodle soup and crackers for dinner and Matthew made a mess on the (again) freshly washed silk tablecloth and bamboo placemat. Mary made more of a mess than he did, crumbling her crackers about eight and a half feet above her bowl. I made a mental note to break down and get the less attractive vinyl placemats for the kids the next time we’re at Wal-mart. Afterward, we all snuggled up in bed and read just about every children’s book that we own. Mary and I took turns reading aloud while Matthew kept up with his own book in his lap and murmured along in a sing-songy voice to the rhythm of what we were saying. Alphabet Soup, Sleepyhead, Noses and Toes, the children’s book of anytime prayers and (Matthew’s all-time favorite) The Adventures of Super-baby were just a few. “Daddy” got home just in time to inspire Matthew to politely decline going to bed. After about 1,002 no’s we finally made the rounds of night-night kisses and he was eventually happy to be tucked in next to all three of his bed-time teddy bear pals. My boy is definitely planted twelve feet deep in a Momma’s Boy phase right now. Whenever daddy tries to do anything with or for him, he’s scolded by Matthew, “No, Daddy! Mommy do it! Mommy do it!!” Sometimes, I’ll admit, it’s a hindrance on a busy day, but at times like these when I’m the only one who will do for night-night prayers and to set his music on just right, I couldn’t be more full of thanks. He spoils me… I get to snuggle that big old two-year-old boy in my arms like an overgrown infant and rock him cheek-to-cheek to the rhythm of his lullabies while he melts into my shoulder. I’m like putty in his hands and he knows it. I get to ask for Eskimo Kisses and “The biggest squeeze in the world” and no matter how many times that I ask, he’s happy to give them. He’ll laugh at anything and everything that I do and he never gets restless or tired of being too babied like he would in the middle of the day. At night time, when it’s just he and I, it’s as if he’s making up for filling those “big boy” shoes all day long; At night time, when it’s just he and I, he’s my baby again - he loves it and I love it - and it’s our little secret. When he wakes up again in the morning, he’ll be back to being that big boy who wants to do everything on his own, even if it means a meltdown of tears and frustration… He won’t want any help with ANYTHING. But until then, his secret’s safe with me.

Such a darling little monster

Mary got to get away with just reading the baby books with me and Matthew last night instead of her usual 30 minutes of real reading. I love her reading log. I used to make her read aloud everyday for 20 minutes (her 2nd grade teacher’s suggestion) but this year, now that she’s in 4th grade, it’s part of her homework - so if she doesn’t want to do it, she can be mad at Ms. Lewin instead of being annoyed with me! :-P This is part of why I love Mary being at the age she is. When she was in 1st and 2nd grade, it wasn’t exactly exciting to sit down with her and struggle through “Strawberry Shortcake’s Birthday Surprise” one boring word at a time. But now she’s into very cool ‘tween chapter books with interesting plots and real characters and life-like scenarios that are a lot of fun to read together and spend the rest of the night chatting about, as naturally as we would a good movie on Blockbuster night. We’re making our way through Ida B right now, a story about a 4th grader who’s home schooled by her mother and helps her dad run a farm… Thursday we hit the real heart of the story, which neither one of us saw coming… Ida’s mom got breast cancer and Ida will have to go back to real school while her mom tries to heal and her dad focuses on selling their farm, bit by bit. I really look forward to when we get to read together at night, and my hope is that Mary starts to miss the days that we don’t do it as much as I do.

Once Matthew and Mary were down for the night, I made the casserole for Spencer and I. We were too busy and just not hungry enough for the full meal that I was originally planning so I popped that in the oven and let it cook itself while we measured twice, cut once… and ran out of rail just a few feet short of finishing the entire room. At around 10:00, the transformation was done and it was breathtaking! We finished our goal of having the mitering for the dining room (almost) finished that night and we’ll be done with the mitering, puttying, spackling and painting completely by the end of today. I can’t wait to put up pictures of the finished room. Converging the playroom back into a functional dining room was the best decision we’ve ever made. We’re loving the flow that exists from room to room now and are getting SO MUCH out of eating together as a family every night at a truly inviting dinner table that we’re actually motivated to clean up at the end of every meal, as well. Yes, eating at the dinner table sure is nice, BUT then again some nights it’s also nice to know that dinner table rules are ours to make and ours to break if that’s what we want … Last night, after such a long, exhausting day, it was definitely one of those curl-up-in-bed-with-a-dinner-plate-and-fall-asleep-with-the-dirty-dishes-on-the-nightstand kind of nights.

Projects and Plans

Pin It

Part of the mural - M&M in a Robin Costume

I went into work on Labor Day from eight to four – It took all of about five and a half hours of painting, standing on a chair, with my knee propped up on a dresser, but I finally finished the first part of my mural at work. It turned out pretty great. I’ll definitely bring my camera with me to work today and put up a picture. The boys have a batman themed room but they’ve collected a lot of M&M’s candy themed stuff over the years, so my boss had me paint an M&M character wearing a Robin mask and a yellow cape. I was a little nervous going into the project because I’d never done a mural before. I’m used to doing large scale charcoal drawings from college, but not mural painting. I also didn’t have any picture in front of me for reference… But about an hour before my shift was over at work, I finished it up and the kids went wild for it. It felt good to get back into the old painter’s shoes again.

Since it was labor day, Mary and Spencer both had off for the day. Spencer dropped the kids off at daycare so that he could spend the day helping to fix his buddy’s car. I picked the kids up from my mom’s and met Spencer back at the house. His friend bought all of us some pizza as a ‘thanks’ for the help and Spencer took him home while I helped Mary with her vocabulary homework, gave Matthew a bath and put the kids to bed. I swept and mopped the kitchen and the bathroom floors and wiped down the shoe molding around all of the baseboards in the bathroom. I absolutely hate that it gets dark so early – I miss being able to have some sunshine left in the afternoon so that I can play out in the yard with the kids or go for a walk around the block with Spencer and Matthew while Mary follows us on her bike with her friends. But it IS actually refreshing to have the darkened sky outside tell me ‘it’s okay to start winding down, the day is over’ as soon as I get home from work at about 5:30 on my earliest days. I’ve been so motivated to rush the start of dinner as soon as I get home just because I feel like it’s already so late as soon as I step in the door. We’ve been eating dinner around 6:30 for the past few nights, when we’ve gotten used to eating sometimes as late as after 8 (which we’ve been trying our hardest to remedy for the longest time). With dinner out of the way so early, I’ve been looking at the clock and realizing that I still have both the time and the energy to do little extras that I don’t normally have the capability to even think about doing at the end of a long weekday. It helps also that Spencer has been on a production kick for the past few weeks, too. We’ve spent every weekend at Lowe’s or Home Depot getting little projects done around the house. He’s been spending all of his free time on the weekends and during his work breaks at home sawing and installing the molding and new seam binders (which go in between rooms to transition one kind of flooring to another), staining and installing new light switch/outlet covers, installing our new (hand-me-down) washer in the Laundry room, and even doing electrician work – which he has absolutely no idea how to do, but hasn’t been afraid of trying. Our goal is to have the shoe molding all finished in the hallway and dining room and to have the paint, chair rail and molding squares up in the dining room before we host Thanksgiving for my brother’s family and my grandmother this year. I really hope we can make it happen before then.

My In-Laws' 25th Wedding Anniversary

Pin It

Mary and her mom-mom

A cool picture of Matthew taking a small break from dancing to hang out with Aunt Flo

The couple finding out their anniversary gift is a 10-day trip to Australia, reaching underneath of their podeums to find their Australia brochure!

We have a huge table saw in our living room this morning. Our do-it-yourself project for this weekend was installing shoe molding around all of the baseboards in our living room and hallway. We pulled up the carpet two weekends ago, which left us with remarkable, brand-new (to us, at least) hardwood floors, but also pretty crummy edges around the walls because of where we had to pull up the carpet tack bars. The baseboards shoe moldings are just a little extra decorative than normal shoe moldings typically are so they cover up the problem area and they make the space look so much more appealing! We only got the hallway done because it took us longer than expected to even get done borrowing the saw from his dad and making our way around Harbor Freight and Home Depot for just the few very small things that we needed. We didn’t get started until after 5, but luckily the kids were both exhausted very early so they were easy to feed and get tucked in so that we could get to work for the rest of the evening. I love working on our little projects around the house. Spencer and I don’t really have a lot of things that we get to do together beyond playing with the kids and shopping. Shopping isn’t fun and playing with the kids (though it’s one of both of our favorite things to do on the planet) is a time when we have to be that other half of ourselves - we have to have the Mommy & Daddy switch turned on. Working on the house is fun for both of us because it gives Spencer a chance to play with all of his “guy toys” that fill up our two-car garage; If he’s lucky we might even have to buy a new gadget or two. I love it because I get to put love into my home - by far, the most meaningful possession I will ever own. I could add something new to my house everyday for the rest of my life and never tire of it. It’s absolutely my favorite thing to do. I get to play decorator and Spencer get’s to actually put it together for me… and when we work on it, we do it together; we measure it out together, we eyeball everything together, we bounce suggestions back and forth and we both help to turn our little vision into reality. When the kids are in bed, we get to crack open a few Coronas and not have to worry if we bang out thumb and a naughty word slips out! It’s just a lot of fun to be able to work on something cooler than a shopping list as a team and to be able to marvel at it everyday afterward as something that we did ourselves.


Spencer’s parents’ 25th wedding anniversary party was on Saturday and we agreed to meet Spencer’s brother and his girlfriend at the hall to decorate on Friday. It’s the tradition that the couple’s children put together a reception for the couple so it was our job to make this thing awesome. During the reception we gave them their real gift - which was a 10 day trip to Australia! Spencer’s little brother put down all of the money for the vacation (because he’d been saving long before we were told about it) so the rest of us put down around $100.00 for the reception. Eric & Tiffany helped to pay for the hall, Jessica paid for the sodas, and we paid for the decorations and showed up Friday and then 3 hours early on Sunday to decorate and to help to get everything organized before the rest of the guests showed up. Because of the once-in-a-lifetime expense of having to bribe his ex-wife to let us stay in the house that never belonged to her anyway with our entire combined life savings, we literally had no money in our savings to contribute to the major expense of the actual vacation this weekend. We want to help out though, so at tax time, we’re going to be giving a large chunk of it to him to help pay him back for the cost of it.

At home, before the reception, I sat down with Mary at the dining room table and we both made hand-crafted anniversary cards for her grandparents. I'd recently stocked up on some beautiful card-making materials so that from now on, when there's an occasion, I can add a personal touch to the gift that we give. It was fun for Mary and I to have something to work on together and both of our card got handed around to everyone at the reception. Spencer's mom had been asking for one of the photos that was taken during our wedding reception of she and her husband dancing to their "parents of the groom" dance. It was one of the best pictures taken that night, so I had it printed out with a pretty border and taped it to the inside of the card, wrapped in a thin, green ribbon.

The reception was great. His dad walked in the door first and had one person straighten his tie at the door while Jessica (his daughter) took him by the arm and led him down a make-shift isle littered with rose petals. When their mom walked in the door we all yelled surprise, the bridal procession song started and someone was at the door to hand her flowers and to put a veil in her hair. We all took pictures as she walked down the isle to meet all of their kids and her husband at the front of the room. Mitchell, Spencer’s brother that organized the whole thing, led the vowel-renewal with a very sweet speech, doing kind of a parody of traditional vowel renewals… One of the best parts was when he said something along the lines of “Mary Stucky, do you promise to love and to cherish Joseph, forsaking all others, to ‘finally clear off the kitchen counter….” which got a big laugh out of everyone. When the renewals were finished, his brother set up a “Price is Right” themed power-point presentation, where he made them stand behind podiums and showed them a slideshow of everything major that they’d bought for their kids (new cars, trailers, home renovation projects, vacations, pets, etc.) and at the end of it, they had to guess what their “Prize” was… His mom guessed “For everyone to just get along for the night?” Mitchell answered, “Well, that’s a little too much to ask but this is what it is…”
And on the screen, was an Australian sunset with the caption “A ten-day trip to Australia!!”

The rest of the night was perfect. I didn't get a long of pictures because Spencer and I danced with the kids clear into 11:00. But I did get a nice, long video of the vowel renewal which means that I have to try to figure out how to send it now so that Becca can put it onto the CD she's making for everyone of it. Mary spent the night with her aunt and uncle and we picked her up the next day before we got started with installing the molding on Sunday. It was another week of us missing church, which isn’t good but it was an enjoyable day with the family.

Halloween!

Pin It

Mary carving pumpkins straight from Pop-pop's garden

Our family on Halloween 2009!

Halloween was a blast; we definitely had a few hiccups in our plans, but all in all it turned out to be one of the best Halloweens I’ve personally ever had. I got much more into it this year than I did last year to make it more fun for the kids and it paid off.

The beginning of the day started off early with ripping up the rest of the living room carpet. We’d done the hallway last Friday night after Spencer got off from work and ate dinner. We’d worked out a good Halloween schedule with Mary’s mom which allowed her to take her for her weekend visit on Friday, but then drop her off nice and early at noon to celebrate Halloween at home. Mary got to spend the night with us so that we didn’t have to worry about being home by a certain time for her mom to pick her up, and then her mom got her at 10:00 in the morning the next day. Since Mary wasn’t home Saturday morning, Spencer and I got to get straight to work on the carpet without having to worry too much about breakfast. Matthew is pretty efficient with a bowl of cereal (milk included) and his Elmo spoon so he just sat in his high-chair and fed himself while we worked on the dangerous part of prying up the carpet tack bars around all of the baseboards. I still needed a few ingredients at the store for my pumpkin pie and Witch cupcakes so I couldn’t get started on any of the baking until we got out of the house. Twelve o’clock snuck up on us and once Mary was home, we headed out for the finishing touches of my costume and some ingredients for the goodies.

My plan was to have Mary and Matthew paint some pumpkins while I baked but Mary wasn’t interested. She’d already carved pumpkins last weekend and Matthew wouldn’t have fun with it if Mary wasn’t going to do it with him. It ended up taking more time than we thought to just clean the floors and prepare them for the Orange Glow refinishing treatment. I got started baking the cupcakes as soon as I had a free second, but before I knew it, the sun was setting and they still weren’t cool enough to even begin decorating. THEN to make matters worse, I couldn’t find my camera. I called my job and sure enough, I’d left it at work. Friday was the day of everyone’s Halloween parade and party at school so I’d taken my camera with me. On a weekday morning that’s a least a half-hour commute each way, but luckily traffic was thin all the way up 141. I shot over there as quickly as I could and had Spencer get the kids dressed while I was out.
I pulled into the driveway to see the absolute most adorable scene on the planet. Mary was all dolled up in her Candy Corn Witch outfit and Matthew was wrooooaaarr-ing away on the front steps in his lion costume. Spencer pointed to me pulling up in the van and Matthew ran over to me as fast as his furry little legs would carry him, crunching through the fallen leaves yelling “Mommy, Mommy Wrooaaar!! Mommy Wrooooaaarrr!!!” I couldn’t have asked for a more picture perfect Halloween moment.

Ready for Trick-or-Treating

I decided at the last minute to just get into the Dorothy idea. I didn’t like that it was “Leg Avenue” Dorothy. Since I was going out with my kids, the idea of wearing some of the skimpier costumes seemed pretty tacky to me. But I decided after all that it was just for fun and that maybe I shouldn’t be so uptight. I had fun with it. I bought some 2 dollar knee high stockings from wallmart and pinned a blue ribbon bow at the top of each. I found a perfect pair of red dress shoes for five bucks and then I bought an extra pair of ribbon bows for my pigtails. It turned out pretty neat. Mary immediately loved my costume and kept telling me that I looked “so cute!” which made me feel good about it not being too much. Then Spencer took one look at it and as politely as he could, made Mary leave the room so he could “help me with the rest of it.”

Mary wanted a touch of make-up so I did it just as instructed, giving her the illusion of long, exaggerated eyelashes with eyeliner and glossing up her lips. Last year her Gothic Mummy costume rocked. We gave her messy pigtails and wrapped her up with extra white scarves and toilet paper overtop of her Mummy dress, from her hair-ties to her knee-high boots. We gave her lots of black, spiky, chain-link jewelry and did her make-up in a scarier way, giving her dark circles around her eyes and black lipstick. It was a nice change to be able to just do her pretty this year. And her short haircut set it off perfectly.

The cupcakes weren’t decorated but we were all eager to get outside and start trick-or-treating. Matthew was lost in all of the excitement. He got up to every door and just smiled sheepishly. He normally has an impressive vocabulary with incredible diction for his age, but his nerves had him all clammed up. He wasn’t scared but after the shock of walking up to a stranger’s doorstep and being asked to say “wroar!” to them, then being laughed at and handed like three candy bars -- he was lost. We walked to the end of the first driveway and said, “Let’s go get more candy!” He cooperatively said, “Okay” and walked back up the driveway to the same door! After the second house, he actually asked to get into the stroller, which is the first time that that anomaly has EVER occurred in the history of his entire life so we knew that he was feeling nervous. He wanted to have fun, but he just didn’t exactly get what we were really doing. After about a street’s worth of houses, he was into it. He didn’t ask to get out of the stroller and it was easier to keep up with Mary that way, so Spencer pulled him up to every door and I collected the candy for him. But at the end of the first street Matthew realized what was happening and he made it known that he wanted to grab the candy out of the bowls himself. Like every two-year-old in the world, he liked the power of being able to hold things in his hands, so he often had to figure out how to pinch as many mini snickers bars as he could between his fingers while still grasping onto the last three pieces of candy he’d gotten from the house before it. He filled up his stroller tray with the candy that he couldn’t hold onto anymore and when he finally realized he was carrying too much, he said, “Mommy, candy please” and that meant that he was ready to toss a few that he was holding onto into the bag. By the last street, Matthew had the routine down and he was ready to romp up to the doors on his big ol’ lion paws, without the stroller. He LOVED knocking on the doors himself and greeted every neighbor with a vibrant, baby-toothed smile. He reached out his hands before they even had a chance to bring the bowl out, most of the time. And he always reached for at least two (since the first two or three houses had so much fun watching the look of euphoric shock come over his face when they handed him each piece that they kept doing it until he’d gotten at least four candy bars out of the deal). Mary was such a trooper through the whole night. We gave her an orange glow stick so that she’d be even easier to spot from a yard or two away and we told her that she was allowed to go a few houses ahead of us if Matthew was taking too long for her at each house. She went only a yard ahead every once in a while but always walked back to us before we even had a chance to catch up to her and she didn’t even complain once! (Which is a feat for her, believe me!) We did an S pattern through the neighborhood and just as we ended up where we’d started (which was actually about a street away from out house, it started to rain. It was only a thin mist at first, which actually felt kind of good, but it quickly turned into an all out shower. We almost stayed out just for the fun of it, but Matthew couldn’t be out in whether like that so we had to speed-walk back to the house. When we started to approach Kaitlyn’s house, Mary had to stop and say hi. Poor Kaitlyn, Mary’s best friend for half of her life, has new braces and decided not to go trick-or-treating at all since she can’t eat most candy. Her parents are at the nasty end of their divorce and her mom was off at a Halloween party while she and her dad handed out candy without even dressing up in costumes (though she was wearing a very cool Halloween themed shirt). Kaitlyn and her dad both happily stood outside in the rain with us to just chat for a minute or two and fill us up on what was left of their candy since they weren’t expecting many more trick-or-treaters.

Dorothy and her happy little cowardly lion!
We got back to the house, drenched and laughing. Mary stripped off her costume as soon as we got in the door and Matthew immediately said, “Bobby-Pop!! Bobby-Pop!” knowing that it was time to dig in without anyone having to explain it to him. Then we realized that it was a perfect time for the rain to come down because we’d already filled up our bags anyway and we were left with plenty of time to start decorating the Witch cupcakes before bed. To top off the night, we let Mary run over to Kaitlyn’s and invite her to have a sleep-over. In light of her not being able to eat any candy we through it would be a fun way for her to spend the Holiday. Mary changed out of her costume and into her Halloween themed outfit (which we bought her to be able to wear to school on Friday) so that she could match her friend. It was a blast. We ordered some pizza from Dominos. Matthew had three lillipops before bed and the girls pigged out on cupcakes in the fort they made out of blankets on the fold-out couch down in the basement to watch Halloween specials in on the big screen T.V.

Coming in after the rain

Matthew enjoying his hard-earned Bobby-Pop!

Mary decorating her cupcakes with Kaitlyn

Our little cupcake witches