Halloween 2008

Once upon a spooky Halloween, there was a stay at home mom (SAHM) who dreamed of becoming a princess mom. She wished upon a star for her fairy godmother to appear when her witchy friend from work/school showed up and POOF went the fairy godmother!

The SAHM made it through 2 hours of small children asking "What are you supposed to be for Halloween?" and then cruised across town in her minivan to her son's school and watched the annual Halloween Parade.

Clearly facing the wrong way in line, but oh so cute heroic looking.

Cuteness onstage for all to see.

School obligations completed and SAHM is happy to be home and out of those itchy velcro rollers. Could really use that fairy godmother to do something with this mop.


Still way too big, but camera does not show the full extent of bigness, thank goodness.


The kids got home from school and we headed outside to take pictures. Ryan is a brave Army Sargeant, Ashley is dressed up as Bacon (her friend whom she is going trick or treating with is the other half of her costume, Eggs. Bret thinks he's 10 again and makes a pretty sweet Viking.

Before the kids head out with friends tonight, we took them to trick or treat at Bret's Dad's house as well as a couple of his mom's close friends' houses.

Bret is now out with Ryan and Ashley caught up with her other half (eggs) and I'm left here to answer the door with two big overly excited dogs.

Just a little note to the hoodlums that came and wiped out our bowl of candy sitting on the porch while I was taking Ashley to her friend's house, RIGHT after my husband filled it - My witchy friend is coming for YOU!

Update: Oh my freaking hilarious! I was not expecting this when the door bell rang! This would be Bret and our neighbor Scott.

Dragging

We're all dragging over here this morning. It could be the over abundance of sugar consumed last night or just the pure exhaustion of the whole night. Or both. After my last post last night, Bret and the kids came home after trick or treating the whole entire neighborhood and we headed out to do our trick or treating to family and friends. Our last stop before taking Danielle home was at Grandma and Grandpa's house. By the time we left, Ashley and Danielle were bouncing off the walls and Ryan was almost comatose. Good times, though it's hard to believe Halloween is over.

Halloween 2007

Halloween just may be the most stressful holiday yet. I'm just saying. Seriously, though. Anyone who tells you that getting their kids and husband dressed up in their costumes, fed dinner, their meeting time with the neighbor established, pictures taken and then finally out the door isn't the least bit stressful - is lying. However, when you see how excited they are and how cute they look (especially when wearing an authentic jersey), it all becomes worth it. That and the silence they leave behind in the house once they're on their merry way.

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Bret and Ryan waiting for the girls to finish getting ready.

Ashley, Danielle and Ryan posing for an obligatory photo (or 15).

Have to have a photo they can put in their lockers. (I told you their costumes were pretty good.)

All set and ready to go.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween

Today is probably the day the kids look forward to at school the most (aside from the last day of the year, of course). All of them at Ryan's school got to put their costumes on and parade around the gym for all of their parents to see.

We had quite the drama here at home this morning before the bus even came, though. I had found a complete Chicago Bear's uniform that came with the football pants, helmet and jersey. The jersey wasn't very impressive, but I figured we already had a real one that he could wear instead. Well, guess who decided to be bullheaded before school this morning! Ryan insisted that he had to wear the one that came with the helmet and pants. I was horrified. I immediately started getting stressed out about how our pictures would end up looking and went back and forth with him, trying to get him to change his mind. He wouldn't budge. I guess I'm not the only stubborn one in this family. So I did what any normal sane person would do. I told him that he could wear the one he wanted to school, but that he WAS GOING TO WEAR THE REAL ONE FOR PICTURES AND TRICK OR TREATING, dam*#t! He wasn't thrilled, but agreed - probably because he had gotten tired of arguing with me.

So here he is in the gym at school, sitting next to his friend Mitchell - who is dressed as a Packer's player. I'm sensing this friendship could be doomed in the future.

And then there's Chloe who was thrilled to be there. She couldn't take it all in fast enough. She wanted the camera pretty badly, but I wasn't going there after I gave her my car keys to play with this morning at CVS and she set my car alarm off. I'm still not sure how I got it turned off. Ironically, she's dressing up as a devil this evening. Fitting, is it not? LoL.

After the parade, it was on to his classroom party for snacks, games and crafts.


You'll never guess in a million years what Ashley and her friend, Danielle are dressing up as. It's a pretty funny sight. (Can you believe I've kept it a secret this long?) (Yes, I know that some of you already know, but don't ruin it for everyone else in the comments section.) More later...

Poof

I was all set to sit down and post some really cute pictures from Ryan Cub Scout field trip this morning when, Poof!, they just disapeared. I downloaded them from my camera and when I went to look at them, the folder was empty. Then I went back to my camera and found that Picasa had deleted them from there, too. What's even worse is that I had taken a picture for another mom of her son holding the American flag during their opening ceremony and now I have no picture to email to her. So now what you get is some serious ranting of the problem with some parents these days...

Last night I spent three hours shooting out emails to everyone that had signed up to help out with the carnival for Ryan's school that Teri and I are chairing. I must have sent out emails to a couple of hundred parents and can you believe that I've only gotten responses from 3 parents so far? Sad. I hope they don't think we're giving up easily, because they will get a phone call - or maybe a few hundred phone calls. Hopefully the responses will start flooding in once the weekend is over.

On a totally different subject, the kids have their Halloween costumes all picked out and ready to go. They are really excited. Ryan is going to be a Chicago Bears football player and Ashley and her friend, Danielle are going as ketchup and mustard. It was quite hilarious watching them try them on in the store bathroom last week. The costumes are bigger than they are. Now if we could just find the time to head over to Apple Blossom Farm to get our pumpkins.

Well, I'm off to finish cleaning my house. Break's over.

The Morning After

Sugar hangovers are definately not a good thing. Ugh!

Which is probably why I'm sitting her watching Scooby Doo even though the kids have gone off to school.

Trick or Treat

What would YOU do if this showed up at YOUR door tonight?

Bret, Scott & Perry took all of the kids out trick or treating tonight. I think Bret & Scott were more excited than the kids about dressing up.

Does she not look like she's 21?

Ashley, the Vampiress and Bret the thing that will give us all nightmares tonight.

Ryan is ready to go! Now, he says!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Neither one of my kids would look at me during their parade at school today, so I had to go track them down in their classrooms to get decent pictures.

Wild Life, Merry Not So Scary Park

Ryan and I met up with his cousins, Brooke and Mitchell at Wild Life Prairie Park for the much more kid friendly version of last night. They had a blast together, as they always do.

Dr. Ryan, with his cousins, "Tom & Jerry".

Preparing for an exciting adventure on the train.


Ryan and I getting our picture taken. (I should have thought of this using my own camera thing last night instead of relying on their polaroids.)

Of course there's more on Flickr!

Letting The Creative Juices Flow

The pumpkins are carved and ready for Tuesday. However, the kitchen floor needs a good scrubbing now.

Ashley needed a little help with hers.

Ryan drew the face on his pumpkin himself before Bret cut it out.

Ashley was able to cut hers out all by herself this year.

Wild Life Scary Park

Last night we went to Wild Life Scary Park with Teri and her family. I was totally prepared to be scared out of my pants, but it wasn't too bad. Guess I'm maturing with 30 right around the corner next month. We waited in line for the train for 2 hours, but it wasn't too bad of a wait. It actually went pretty fast with all the spooks walking around trying to freak us out. Every time you would let your guard down, this guy below would be standing right behind you, waiting for you to turn around.

He got me quite a few times.

Um, a pile of leaves, you ask? Nope, this was a person in a costume getting ready to jump up and scare the people behind us.

At one point, Teri broke down and had to use the porta potty, so Bret went over to wait for her to come out so he could scare her...

But that wouldn't have been good enough, so we pulled our friend from earlier over and had him stand right at the opening of the door. Ha!

Michael Meyers creeped me out the most, but he didn't scare Skyler one bit.

(I don't know why it's doing this with the font, but it's not a link!)

Skyler, Scott, Ashley & Bret as the train gets ready to take off into parts unknown.

And now I'll be going back with Ryan and his little cousins tonight for the not so scary part.

More on Flickr.

BOO!!! Eeeek!!! Shriek!!!

More later...

Dr. Evil

Here you have it. The mask and the doctor's lab coat. He's decided to be an Evil Doctor for Halloween. At least it'll hide the horrible collar.

Anyone for a house call?

Halloween Headache

So, do you remember when Ryan said he wanted to be a doctor for Halloween? Well, I ran out and bought the materials to make him a lab coat and I forgot about two things that I have trouble with. Collars and button holes. So after spending hours of my time trying to make this coat, I've finally called it quits. The collar looks horrible and the pockets are uneven. We won't even talk about what happened when I tried to make the button holes. So after about 5 hours of working on this thing, Bret comes home with a cheap skeleton mask from Big Lots and Ryan decides that he's now going to be a skeleton. Figures.

I have, however, had other costumes turn out successfully in the past.

Like the year Ryan went as a Chicago Cub's baseball. He wore this with a navy blue sweatsuit underneath it.

And the best thing I've ever made of all time. Ashley's Medeival Maiden costume.

I have pictures of the kids in them, but that was back before we joined the digital camera world. Not bad for teaching myself how to sew a few years ago, right? (That would be just one of my famous hobbies that typically lasts about three months before I move on to another one - but that's a whole different post.)