Halloween Preperation!

What a fun night! Arick got a brand new video game (Fable II for the Xbox 360) and he wanted a few hours to play without the interruption of the boys, so he “kicked us out” of the house for the day. Not that I was sad to go! We spent the day at Kristin’s. When we first got there, we carved pumpkins. I’ve never carved a pumpkin before! The most I’d ever done was draw a face on it with permanent marker. Kristin had a pumpkin carving kit, but she couldn’t find it anywhere, so we had to use the “medieval” tools of knives and spoons. LOL I actually think they turned out quite well, considering I’d never before done it and had to use, what I hear is, such “primitive” pumpkin carving tools. I picked up two pumpkins from the commissary the night prior, so that there would be one for each of the boys. Aidyn really got excited about it and got into scooping all the insides out with his spoons and dumping it into a bag. It didn’t quite smell like what I expected…I guess I just thought it’d smell like pumpkin pie. LOL It most definitely did not! On Aidyn’s pumpkin, I did two spiders, and on Calen’s, I did a ghost. Kristin carved a cat and stars on hers. J

One of Kristin’s other friends, Liz, came over as well with her 2 month old baby girl. We all ended up going over to the base to try and take the kids to the Trunk-or-Treat and the non-scary hours for the Haunted House. Unfortunately for me, neither of the boys would wear their costumes. L I went through all the trouble of getting Aidyn a Halloween costume (Spiderman!), and he refused to wear it. I didn’t think of costumes ahead of time enough to order any online or ask my in-laws to send us some, and the options at the BX were little to none. They had infant and adult costumes and pretty mush nothing in between. So I was going to let Calen decide between his and Aidyn’s costumes from last year, James or Thomas, but he didn’t want either. Collin looked really cute in his skeleton jumper, though! If we get to make it to the Halloween carnival on base on Halloween day, maybe I can convince them to dress up then. Or maybe Arick can. He seems to have that touch.

When we got to base and around to where the line was for the trunk-or-treat, it really ended up not being worth the wait. The line was waaaaaaaaaay too long to stand in with 4 kids aged 2 months through 3 years. It was a little nippy as well, and not good for Hannah and Collin to be out in. So instead, we went to the food court inside and the boys got pizza. That made them happy. J The food vendors also had some candy set out for the kids, so we got a little (and I mean very little) bit anyhow. While I was there, I had to run and grab some diapers (I ran out in the diaper bag before we even got to base!) and picked up a little thing of Snickers bars as well, just so that Aidyn could say “trick or treat!” and get some candy in his bucket. I let him hold on to the bucket for the trip back to Kristin’s. That turned out to be a mistake.

Kristin and I were talking in the front, when all of the sudden, an aroma caught my olfactory attention. And we’re not talking about stinky diaper aroma, either. I could smell chocolate. I asked Kristin if Aidyn had gotten into the candy, and sure enough, he already had half of the bar gone! (They weren’t the mini-sized…probably about the size of the ones you see at the check-out counter.) I didn’t even know he could open packages like that! Needless to say, he didn’t get to hold the bucket for the rest of the trip. I guess the chocolate-y mess could have been significantly worse than it was, but I was just too miffed (and amused, really) that he’d even gotten it open to fully appreciate that. He got some on his socks and some on his shirt. (He was pant-less due to a wetting accident, just before getting in the car.) No chocolate, seemingly, on his car seat or anywhere on the car’s upholstery, thank goodness! We went back to Kristin’s and baked some cookies. Yum! Aidyn was very excited about using the cookie cutter to help make Halloween sugar cookies! In fact, when I turned my back (I know, I know, foolish me!) to put one on the cookie sheet, Aidyn helped himself to using another cookie cutter, smack dab in the middle of the rolled out dough! He even had pulled it up and set it aside, with the dough caught inside the cutter! He’s getting awfully sneaky and very independent. He makes his own choices on what he wants to do and acts on it.

After the cookies were all in the oven, the boys played their little hearts out while Krsitin and I chatted and crocheted. (I’m teaching her how to make the round ripple afghan!) J She and I got to decorate the cookies, too. At first we thought about letting the boys try to do it, but then this mental image of Aidyn squeezing the icing tube as hard as he could and making a huge mess just wouldn’t get out of my head! So we had fun with it instead. J I looked at the clock at about 10p, and thought that I should start to get the boys ready to go. I really try to not keep them out too late. When they started getting inexplicably cranky, though, was when I finally got around to getting us out the door. Guess why they were so cranky….it was because it was two in the morning!!! I can’t believe we stayed that late! I have no idea how 10-30 minutes turned into four more hours! I still can’t believe that was four hours!

I got home and the boys in bed, and went downstairs to apologize to Arick for us getting home so late, and I asked him if he enjoyed his 13 kid-free, gaming hours, and you know what he said? “It wasn’t long enough.” *eye roll* Gamers. ;) LOL So today I was going to return Kristin’s cell phone to her (she accidentally left it in the car last night), and he suggested that I take the boys and a movie and that the boys and I stay over there for an hour or two…or five. LOL We ended up getting to have some yummy pumpkin pasta dish that Kristin had never made before. It was quite tasty! Much to Arick’s dismay, though, the boys and I didn’t stay nearly as late this time around. LOL All in all, I had a fantastic weekend!