Halloween 2014

I know a lot of people don't get Halloween, but I've always loved the holiday.  I think it goes way back to my days of dressing up like a clown, or a birthday present (compliments of Mom). getting in the station wagon with my Dad and siblings and trekking around the neighborhood, following a careful game plan created by Dad earlier in the week.  Then, after we were good and cold, and our bags were nice and heavy (and we'd been given a donut and a heart attack at the Dye's or the Christensens), we would come home, sit in front of the fireplace and dump our loot on the rug.  We would organize our candy, eat a lot of it, trade it around for our favorite pieces in each other's bags and then get the bathtub nice and dirty scrubbing off our face paint.  What's not to love?

So, now even with the hustle and bustle of carving four or five pumpkins and gathering as many costumes, I still love Halloween.

Dash carving an NFL Redskin's logo into his pumpkin.  I never got a picture of all the pumpkins before the deer snacked on them, so you'll have to trust me when I say they looked great.

Colt carving the NFL Bronco's logo into his pumpkin.

Sport and Dad cleaning up a pumpkin before Sport carved in two flying bats.

Sissy's pumpkin never really developed into much more than a sensory play station for her.

Brandan's pumpkin. 

I sponsored Sport's preschool Halloween party.  Here the cast of characters are making patterns by stringing colored noodles on pipe cleaners.

Sissy has always had good fine motor skills, so she joined the preschool kids and made herself a Halloween bracelet.

The kids had the Friday of Halloween off from school, so they celebrated the day before.  Here is Dash dressed as a football player at the school costume parade.

Colt dressed as a ninja at the costume parade.

 On Halloween Day, the Mountain View high school football team hosted a State playoff game.  Brandan had to run the clock at the game, so I was sitting in the bleachers when I noticed Colt and Sport staying a little closer to me than normal.  Both boys had been sick earlier in the week, but I thought we were over the worst.  I was wrong.  By the end of the game, Colt had a horrible fever and Sport wasn't much better.  We had promised the kids they could trick-or-treat the local businesses, so we hurried home, got everyone dressed and Brandan dragged everyone through a couple stores before we hurried over to the Medical Clinic.

Trick or Treating the local businesses.

By the time we got to the doctor's office, Colt was miserable and sick.  He slumped in a chair and was asleep within minutes. Diagnosis- strep throat.

Sport flopped out on the floor in the doctor's office.  Sport wasn't as bad off as Colt, so they chose not to run a strep test, but just give him meds as well.  Thank you kind doctors!

 After the doctor's office, Brandan took Dash, Sport and Breeze to the ward trunk or treat and taco bar, while Colt slept off his fever at home.  Poor Colt.  His medicine kicked in just in time to miss the ward party, so we bundled him up and let him go around the neighborhood to three or four houses.  Add that to the stash Dash collected for him at the trunk-or-treat, and Colt got enough candy, even if he didn't get the fun experience.

Sport and Sis, the Pirate Princess, counting their loot.