Trick or Treat with Mystery Inc.

On the radio they were having a debate on when you were too old to go trick or treating. Some communities are actually cracking down this horrible crime. My opinion has always been, "Geez! It's just candy. If you're cool with begging for it, then I am cool with giving it to you!" I would like to see a costume. I would like to hear Trick or Treat followed by a Thank You, but that's not a deal breaker around here. Last night we had one group of six foot tall costume-less boys show up. Much less than we usually get. I'm not ever going to kick up a fuss about that. (Now the mommies collecting for the invisible kids who are "in the car"...That I have a problem with.)


The teenagers in my life went out on Trick or Treat night but they were collecting canned food for Trick or Treat So Kids Can Eat again.
As you can see they were the Scooby Doo gang:Shaggy, Daphne, Velma and Fred(rica). They couldn't find one kid to agree to be Scooby. Bummer.

They collected a ton of food, coming back to the house to unload the Mystery Machine when it got to heavy to pull before they headed out again.


Again this year we gave out glow stick bracelets. It's a huge hit and it's come to the point that some neighbor kids are expecting it. Can't let the kiddos down now!

Kids are thrilled to get a glow stick. But this was the first year I had not one, but many kids instantly put it in their mouth. What is up with that? It's glowing! What makes you think you can eat it?

We got more glow ball connectors with our order this year and made a couple of pumpkins to hang in the trees.
They looked so awesome that we are going to have to buy even more glow sticks next year to make even more pumpkins. I wonder if I can buy just orange? (Note: Tiny investigation yields the answer is Yes!)

Finally the jack-o-lantern part of Halloween.

The Girl's...

A bit gruesome...or romantic. Hard to tell.

The Boy's...
Just plain scary.

And my pumpkin snowman all lit up with his own glow bracelets.


Insanely cute, if I do say so myself. Trick or Treaters were going nuts for him. Kids posed with him and got their pictures taken. That was a surprise. My favorite part was when then tiniest kids would walk up to him and they were the same height. That killed me everytime.

Now it's time to go score clearance stuff and store it for next year!

Halloween Greetings

Happy Halloween
from our pumpkins to yours!

Halloween Adventures

Let's start with the obligatory shots of our jack-o-lanterns this year.

Here's the whole group before they headed out to the yard. That monster in the back is The Man's that we got at a clearance price because we always wait to the next to last minute to buy our pumpkins. It isn't carved yet here, but it is cleaned out (the hole is in the back). Even empty it was still a crippling weight.
Here's what it ended up getting carved into. Spooky!

I went for a way too complicated design. It actually says Happy Halloween around the edge, but it wouldn't photograph well. And, yeah, it took me a long time to do!

Here's The Girl's sweet little creation...

And The Boy's creepiness.

The crew did go trick or treating this year, but instead of collecting candy, they collected canned goods for Trick or Treat So Kids Can Eat. The Girl, Boy and Other Girl in Our Lives went out two days ahead of time and put fliers on around ninety houses in our neighborhood about it. On trick or treat night, they decorated a wagon and went out collecting. They were so successful that they had to come back to the house and unload the wagon so they could go out and get more.

Here's our do-gooders.


Is The Girl a basket of laundry for Halloween?

Yes, she is.

She even smelled good.


But even bigger than trick or treat was the Halloween camp out I planned out at Timberlane right on Halloween. It was a huge day filled with archery, dipping candles, making caramel apples, creating trick or treat bags out of duct tape, a scavenger hunt, cabin to cabin trick or treating, a spooky hike in the woods, star gazing at the observatory and a costume dance. It was an amazing weekend and the weather cooperated beautifully.


The girls of my troop were in charge of the spooky hike: Explore the Lost Trail of Timberlane. This is an actual trail that nobody takes because it's not very interesting and doesn't go anywhere. A lot of Scouts aren't even aware that it's there. But we jazzed it up, Singing River style, by building a little cemetery in its depths.

It's doesn't look like much but it was much more spooky by flashlight, I assure you. My girls, donned head to foot in black, were supposed to creep along the path alongside our hikers making scary sounds. Unfortunately, the moon was unbelievably bright, the trees are very skinny and all of the leaves were down in that part of the woods. It didn't take much for the hikers to see "the ghosts" ducking around trying to stay invisible. Their blood curdling screams though were very impressive though.


I didn't take very many pictures of the weekend. With this event being my baby, I spent the majority of my time running around like a madwoman making sure everything was going off as planned. I hope the other leaders took pictures of the indoor archery and Pinecrest covered in caramel. I hope there are shots of our flag ceremonies and the table settings. I saw cameras out at the dance, but there was also a fog machine (that set off the smoke detectors!), so they might not have come out. And the food! I hope someone got a picture of the meatballs with the cheese and olive slice eyes! So cool!

Jack O' Lanterns at Night

While I'm thinking of it, here's our pumpkins all lit up.

Mine

The Girl's

The Man's

I would show you the Boy's but before I could get a picture he and his hoodlum friends shot it full of holes with the archery set and then dropped it out of a tree just to see what would happen. I'm sure you can imagine what happened.

Halloween Day 3

My sister is having a Halloween party.

Yeah?

Yeah. And we're not doing anything that night, so I already said we would come.

Oh?

Yeah. It's a costume party.

silence

Did you hear me?

I haven't worn a Halloween costume since I was in the sixth grade. I don't think I've ever even been to a Halloween party before.

So this will be fun!

The kids don't even have costumes this year.

Nope. But we will.

Huh. What night is it?

Thanks for the invite sis! We had an great time!

Halloween Day 2

Yes, the post is called Day 2 and there wasn't a Day 1 post. Sorry about that. I'll try to make amends.

There was no school today so all the Halloween parties at school happened yesterday. Every school does Halloween a little different but the end result is the same, a building full of kids completely whacked out by 1 PM. I chose not to go to work. Been there. Done that. Never again.

Also yesterday evening it was trick-or-treat in our fair city. It happened last night because we can't have kids and drunks on the streets at the same time. Anytime Halloween lands on a Friday or Saturday night, trick-or-treat is moved. We got hit SO HARD last night by trick-or-treaters! The weather was just a little too perfect and every stinking kid, their mom and the new baby in the stroller was out. We ran out of candy and glow-sticks in the first hour and we started out with a ton. My kids hit the roads on their own with a gaggle of neighborhood kids. They were gone a good long time and came home with lots of Snickers bars for me!

Here's our jack-o-lanterns this year. I've got them lit outside again tonight since it really is Halloween and we can use all the protection from evil spirits we can get. I'll go out in a second and get some nighttime shots of them.

The Boy's cyclopic offering...

The Man's very creepy skeleton face...

The Girl's two-faced thing...



And mine featuring a sweet kitty, spider and pumpkin in a pumpkin!

Tonight was Day 2. We went out to the Halloween Walk the Metroparks put on. Every year this event gets better. This year's set-up was excellent and it wasn't too crowded which was a nice surprise. Now we are home and we are trying to decide which scary movie to watch.

Tomorrow is Day 3. The Sister is throwing a Halloween Bash that should be the end-all-be-all of Halloween parties. Stay tuned for how it turns out!