Halloween 2012

We finally caught the Halloween bug around here. We've been so busy with other things that I haven't had much time to relish in my favorite season (not my favorite holiday, but my favorite season). Halloween is always SO COLD in the midwest but we bundled up and went trick-or-treating downtown on Main St. today.

Luke was a doctor and Cam was a dog. Luke originally wanted to be a cat (how do you make a manly cat costume?), then I talked him into being a construction worker. But then he saw a little doctor kit in the store and I told him he could have it if he would be a doctor (very easy costume for us to throw together around here). It wasn't the coolest costume ever but he seemed happy with it. All the businesses downtown put out black and orange balloons if they are giving out candy. It was a lot of fun. Cam was cautious at first but by the end he was shouting out, "trick-or-treat" like a pro.

A few people were confused about the boys' costumes. They couldn't decide if Luke was a moose or a doctor or a moose doctor. Some thought Cam was a mouse. All I can say is that it has been a busy 3 weeks over here. We have been to Italy, Utah, Cleveland for a wedding, Indiana for a BYU game, AND I refinished the deck somewhere in between all those things. So moose-doctor and mouse-dog were the best we could do.

Afterwards, Cam went down for a nap and Luke and I had ourselves a little party. We cranked up the Halloween music on Pandora and carved the pumpkin. Luke dumped his candy out on the table and I just let him go to town. It was nice to give myself permission not to regulate for a day. Feeding children is sort of a stressful ordeal for me on a daily basis, so for at least today I decided to chill out.

As a quick aside, I will also mention that I have been a bit of a mean mom lately. I have just felt so frustrated by the things involving my kids that aren't going so great, that I stopped teaching and started telling (sometimes very loudly). I stopped enjoying and started surviving. But then I read this talk from General Conference last night and decided that my methods of tackling the problems of the moment were downright ineffective. So I'm trying to be a more loving Mom again. So far it has made a HUGE difference for everyone involved and our home feels like a much happier place. If I get lazy and start my mean mom tyrant act again, you make sure I re-read that talk. Thanks. Now moving on...

I told Luke that he should save some of his candy for later instead of eating it all in one day. He thought about it and a few minutes later he came up to me and showed me the inside of his pumpkin. He said, "Look Mom, I'm saving these for later!"

We originally weren't going to put any political signs in our yard. One, because we like to remain pretty neutral and independent when it comes to politics, and two, because we live in a VERY liberal town and I would like to make some friends first before they jump to any conclusions about who we are :). But, a neighbor found out we were LDS and came to my door (holding the Romney sign) and said, "I don't know your political persuasions but I just thought you might want one of these," with a little wink and glimmer in her eye. She was so nice (and we are voting for Mitt) so we decided to come out of our little conservative closet. Lets hope we didn't kill our social life :)

I was feeling a little homesick today for our old apartment complex. All the little kids would go trick-or-treating together and everyone was such good friends. It made me happy when a family here invited us (and others) to go trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. It was kind of like the good ole days in C-bus.

Happy Halloween!