Holiday Birthdays are SUPER fun. But they are also SUPER stressful. You'd think that after 12 years of celebrating Charlotte and Lydia's birthday simultaneously with Halloween I'd have this thing down. But no, I just keep making it more complicated.
In some ways I've learned a few things. No one wants to eat cake on Halloween. So we've stopped doing birthday cake on their birthday. And I always try to have the costumes done a week or so early.
But this year we decided to add a "Halloween/Birthday Dance Party" to the line up. And that complicated things.
I tried to avoid how complicated it would be. We originally planned for the party to be on Saturday October 22. But our house becoming a COVID hotspot changed all that.
We rescheduled the party for Friday the 28th - which was the same night as our ward trunk or treat. We literally went from one party to another that night.
We started prepping for the party early in the week.
On Monday we cleaned the basement.
On Tuesday we cleaned some more
On Wednesday we rearranged the basement
On Thursday we decorated
On Friday we set out the food and partied!
But that's getting ahead of our story. First we need to rewind and go through the early part of the week and talk about all the non-birthday/halloween things that were going on.
On Sunday the other set of Twins brought us cookies as a Sorry-You-Got-Covid/Thanks-for-the-Harry-Potter-tickets gift. Those were fun to have.
We cut the apples into slices. Then we could dip them into the caramel and then into the toppings.
Here he is on Monday, excited to spend the day with me.
His SPED teacher had sent home a homework packet. We did a few pages together. He's become better at math. I was especially impressed with his knowledge of money. He knew the names and the amounts for all the coins.
Derrick is always really interested in looking up the 10 day weather forecast. The night before we'd looked it up and he'd wanted to see what the wind speed was for every day. I figured it would be kind of fun to chart that. So we made a graph of the wind speed for the next several days.
On Wednesday I'd made an appointment with Safelite Auto Glass to replace the windshield on our van. We'd bought it with a huge crack down the center. Derrick kept telling me, "Mom, you need to call Safelight." Then he'd sing, "Safelite Repairs Safelite Replace."
And that was about as much homeschool as he or I could stand. So he went to watch Youtube while I clocked in for work and did a bunch of billing stuff from home.
That evening Brandon and I helped Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica with some of their homework they needed to do to catch up. Charlotte and Lydia were doing some sort of learning styles evaluation. Veronica had to do a report on Samuel Morse.
On Tuesday Derrick was home with me again. I had a dentist appt that morning so I took Charlotte and Lydia to school and then drove to the dentist. Then I came home and did some work with Derrick.
One of the things we did was sew in extra material to make the sleeves and legs of his spaceman suit long enough. I'd bought the space man suit at Goodwill 2 years ago. At the time it had been a 6T size and Derrick was 8. So I'd had to make the whole thing bigger two years ago. I'd extended the pant legs and added extra material to the torso and back. But at that time the arms had been long enough that I didn't need to make them longer.
Well the arms were definitely not long enough any more. Every time Derrick put the costume on he'd try to tug the sleeves down from his elbows to his wrists. He'd say, "Mom, this needs to be longer!" So on Monday we'd gone to Joanne's and bought half a yard of white cotton. And on Tuesday we cut the sleeves and added the fabric in at the elbow. Derrick was so excited!
I decided since I had the time and material I might as well make the legs longer so I added another 6 inches there. This suit should work for another year or two.
I went into my office at noon for admin meeting. It was good to be back there, even if it was just for a little while.
The weather had turned colder over the weekend and Brandon was getting flooded with calls for RV winterizations. He had two that afternoon. This became the new normal. After several months of sporadic business it was really exciting for things to get busy.
Derrick watched a lot of silly videos on Youtube. Veronica got an idea from one and decided to do it to our house. She was so proud to show this too me.
I was like, "Where did you hear that?'
He told me it was on Youtube. Apparently there had been a lot of Safelite adds on Youtube lately.
So I made the appointment and told Derrick. He said, "Are they coming to our house?"
I told him no, and then asked how he knew Safelite did house calls.
I guess that's also in the add.
He was so excited. One of the things I love about this costume is all the accessories that came with it. It has boot covers, gloves, a backpack, and the helmet. I bought it all for something like $18 and it has served us well.
Here's Charlotte as a Witch. This is also another costume from 2 years ago. We'd found the orange dress at Goodwill and I'd added the black skirt to it. Charlotte is wearing Derrick's shiny Sunday shoes. These came from my friend Kaymie's boys. Brandon didn't realize that and thought they were his Army shoes. He was like, "Be super careful with those. They cost a lot of money." And I was like, "No, they were free."
Here's Veronica as a pirate skeleton. The skeleton costume was another one from 2 years ago. (I swear this wasn't planned, we just had an extra successful trip to Goodwill in 2020.) She was talking about wearing it with her police costume from last year, but then she saw Lydia's pirate costume from 2018. So she became a pirate skeleton. I laugh so hard every time she wears that mask.
Lydia was reprising the same idea of her costume from two years ago. She'd been a Werewolf in 2020. That costume had a tail and ears. This time she was being a "cool" Werewolf from the movie Zombies 2. I'd looked up pictures from that movie and all the werewolfs had fur vests. I was getting myself mentally ready to sew a fur vest. But I took a trip to Once Upon A Child first. I found a fur vest for $2.50!!!!!! I couldn't have bought material for that cheap. I also found the pants and shirt at Once Upon a Child.
There were two wards there so there was a LOT of candy. Derrick would come back to the car and dump his bucket into his helmet.
Here's ME. And look at my nice hair. My sister Hillary had cut my hair and given me a balayage less than two weeks earlier, but this was one of the first times I had really styled it. I LOVE it.
I left to get the pizza as the trunk or treat was winding down.
Here's all the food.
Here are some of the kids. The little girl in the clown costume kind of scared me. I hadn't seen her come in. She just was in the basement all of a sudden. I said to Macey, "You can see the clown too, right?" We had a good laugh about that.
More hanging out.
Me and Charlotte.
It's a little hard to see, but we have a "chalk" outline on the floor. The kids had drawn one on the floor when we were decorating on Thursday. It quickly rubbed off. So Brandon put down a more permenant one with painters tape. (And I left it there when I put the rug back a few days later. So that will be a fun surprise next time we move the rug.)
Here's Lydia in her costume.
And I got a close up of her teeth. They were so cool.
Here's Veronica. Lydia told me later that all her friends thought Veronica was a boy.
We did presents about halfway though the party.
The kids got some fun stuff.
Then it was time for cake. Brandon had made this master piece. My tastebuds are still off from COVID so the whole thing tasted like baking soda to me. But everyone else seemed to like it.
It was a super thick cake. Brandon did the black frosting with black frosting dye I'd bought at Zuerchers and chocolate frosting. It turned out really well.
I hadn't been able to find fake candles at the store so I'd bought real candles. 
Brandon brought down the cake and everyone sang to the girls.
I thought the party would get crazier after the cake, but really everyone kind of chilled out. The kids ended up sitting down and telling each other scary stories. They'd have one or two of the other kids act out what was going on.
Here are the girls pretending to be passed out on the couches. (They were really fine.)
Here's the table.
The playlist was still going and Charlotte and Brandon danced for a bit.
Here's Derrick showing off his candy from the trunk or treat.
So yeah this selfie is be either preparing to paint a master piece or start a revolution. You decide.
Brandon was going for a grim reaper look, but he added fangs and so he was more of a vampire. 
The party was SUPER fun. It was hosted by Sam (Also known as Lieutenant Brannigan from Guys and Dolls) and his wife Casie (AKA the stage hand turned Leading Lady from The Play that Goes Wrong.)
Here's Charlotte's.
Derrick's
Lydia's.
And Veronica's.
I was in the mood enough to get the kids to pose for our traditional picture.
And we put them out on the porch.
The parade started. The kids would come out the doors from one hallway walk across the backtop and then go in the doors to the second hallway. This was the first Halloween Parade at this school since 2019. Veronica's 3rd grade class had never been in a real parade. They had just done a little one when they were in Kindergarten. I was really happy that the Principal wanted to bring this tradition back. 
We took a selfie together.
Derrick wasn't in his 5th grade classroom. I found him in his SPED room. He didn't like all the craziness of the party in his room so he'd come in here to enjoy the quiet.
I sat down next to Derrick and prepped the cash that I had to take to the bank. I was thinking about hanging around the school until the kids got out. But I realized that even though it was only about 30 more minutes I really could use those 30 minutes. So I said goodbye to Derrick and went home. I got in my van and drove over to the bank to deposit the money.
The girls got safes like the one Veronica had for her birthday. They also each wanted a watch. Here's Charlotte's.
And Lydia. (It's not a great picture of the watch, but her shirt is fun. It says, Candy is a girls best friend.)
They also each got a pair of roller blades. (Then they wanted to put them on and I was like, "No, this day is crazy enough.)
Pretty much as soon as we were done with presents it was time for costumes. Here are all the kids again. Derrick didn't want to wear his helmet so he wore his NASA cap that had also come with the costume. He'd worn it to school too. He liked to do salutes.
Id' set up a whole area outside on the driveway. I had the kids pose with their pumpkins. 
And LOOK I had a fire! This was an idea that had been percolating since last year. My favorite thing about Halloween is how its such a fun community event. When we lived in the south I loved that everyone sat out on the porches and could see all the trick or treaters as they walked around the neighborhood. I've been trying to come up with a way to have that feeling again. 
At first I thought I'd get one of those stand up propane heaters. But they were too expensive for my budget. Plus when I thought about it a fire sounded more inviting. So I borrowed my neighbor Jennifer's portable firepit. Here's Derrick posing with it.
Brandon took the kids around. The other set of twins came with their dad and they met up and all 6 kids went around together. I stayed home and enjoyed the fire. The day had been so rushed that I really appreciated having a chance to just sit and stare at the fire.
Here I am. I was sporting my Baconsale Hoodie. I also had the sound bar set up on the brick ledge on the house. It was playing the Baconsale Halloween playlist.
Here's the fire as the evening got darker. A lot of people were like, "Cool, a fire. Now where's the candy." I was fine with that. I told peopel to come back and get warm later if they wanted.
Here are the pumpkins.
A family with a little boy who was bout 4 came by. They were my first ones to roast marshmallows and make smores. Smores had sounded like such a good idea several days earlier. But by this point everyone had had so much sugar they didn't sound so great. Still some people did them.
I had nearly the exact same conversation with Veronica later.
Never doubt the power of Youtube commercials.
So on Wednesday morning Derrick and I dropped Charlotte and Lydia off at school and then drove to Safelite. Derrick saw one of the repair vans parked out front and was like, "Mom, that's just like on Youtube!"
We dropped off the keys in the office. Derrick told the office lady, "The Honda Odyssey has a big crack in it." She said they'd get it taken car of.
Safelite is only about a mile and a half from our house so we walked home after we dropped off the car. This is actually the second time we've done this. Back in 2020 I'd had to replace the Pilot's windshield. That time I'd brought Derrick with me because I didn't trust him home alone. This time it was more because I'd known he was so interested in Safelite.
Here we are pausing for a selfie while we walked through the park.
Derrick was so proud of it. Here he is posing with it.
Back at home I had to jump on a google call for work. And then I kept working, and working, and working. The billing software had a pretty significant upgrade the day before. Overall the upgrade is great. But there was quite a bit of extra work for me to do to correct some little quirks.
I kind of wished I could have done more for Derrick, but I really had to do all that work. For his part he was content to be on Youtube.
At 1:00 I walked over to the middle school to meet up with Lydia while she had a follow up appt with the school counselor. It was a short appointment. Lydia's earlier fears and worries were behind her and she was feeling much better.
That afternoon Veronica had a little talent show for girls activity. She said her talent was money and she took her safe to show everyone. (She's a child after my own heart. My talent is money too.) Veronica said lots of people really liked her safe.
I took Veronica and our friend Addy to the activity. Kaymie (Addy's mom) brought them home. I'm glad I set that up because I needed to pick up the Odyssey about the same time they were supposed to come home. Brandon was taking care of another winterization so he wasn't able to take me to Safelite. I kind of planned to walk up there on my own and listen to a podcast on the way. But before I left I asked Derrick if he wanted to come along. He enthusiastically said yes.
So we walked back to Safelite. When we got there the van was parked out front. Derrick went over to inspect it. He saw that the windshield wipers said Safelite on them. He asked, "Did they replace those too?" I said yes.
We went inside and picked up the key. Derrick asked the lady about the windshield wipers. She said they had been replaced. He was like, "Oh, good job,"
Then we got in the car and drove home. It was so nice to have a new windshield.
I liked walking with Derrick. But the whole time I was like, "hmmm my foot really hurts. I really need to get that looked at." My foot has been hurting off and on since like March. I've been putting off getting it looked at because . . . I don't know . . . cost . . . time . . . I really don't know.
But I'd just dropped several hundred dollars and a whole day into fixing the windshield on a 14 year old car that I bought for $1000.
So this has been another edition of Valerie taking better care of her vehicles than her own BODY.
(I set a goal to make an appt with a podiatrist before the end of November.)
That evening I was getting a little jittery. I'd had too many consecutive days at home with kids without much of a break. So after dinner I went shopping and left Brandon in charge.
I went to buy decorations and things for our Halloween party. I went to Dollar Tree, Zuerchers, Walmart, and Spirit Halloween. It was fun to get things for the party. And it was even better to be on my own for the first time in a really long time.
On Thursday Derrick was finally able to go back to school. He was so happy! And because he was back at school I was able to go back to the office. YAY! YAY! YAY!
Well actually I went grocery shopping first. Then I came home and brought in all the food and put away the perishable stuff. I left everything else on the table and WENT TO WORK!!!!!
Working from home is great and all, but I really love my office. I don't get as distracted there. And I can actually follow up with my coworkers in person. I spent hours in the office getting caught up on things that had been too complicated to do from home. (I have two screens on my work computer and there are just some things that are super hard to do with one screen on my laptop.)
At 2:30 I picked up Derrick early from school so he could go to speech therapy. The night before I'd been trying to figure out what to do with Veronica. Normally she'd just hang out with Brandon. But he was busy with RVs. In theory she could be home alone until the twins got home, but that seemed like an excessively long time. I'd texted Kaymie to see if Veronica could come home with her, but she had appointments for her own kids.
Then I thought of my friend Lindsey. Lindsey's daughter is in Veronica's class. They get along pretty well. And I always see Lindsey in her car waiting for her kids when I'm walking to get my kids. So I asked her if Veronica could go home with them. That ended up being the BEST idea. Veronica had a BLAST at their house. This might become the standard when Derrick has speech therapy.
The day had been pretty good, but it had also been busier than I'm used to. I ended up going to take a nap after dinner. (I was pretty grumpy so it was a little like going into timeout until I could behave better.) I woke up to Brandon and the kids decorating the basement. I'd bought lots of fun things like crate paper, Chinese lanterns, fake spider webs, caution tap, and balloons.
The room was looking super cool.
Friday was one of those nuts day.
I dropped Charlotte and Lydia off at school and then drove right to work. Then I worked for hours getting things caught up. I've been known to only work 40 minutes on Fridays. This time I worked 4 hours.
I went home for some lunch and then drove over to Toy Town to buy a party light. (Our last one had broke and well, you just can't have a dance party without a light.
Back at home I took care of a little more decorating. Derrick and Veronica came home and helped with more stuff. Then Charlotte and Lydia came home. We worked on the last few things for the party.
At 4:45 everyone changed into their costumes for the Trunk or Treat at our church. I helped Charlotte and Lydia with their make up. Then we started taking pictures before getting into the car.
Here's Derrick in his spaceman outfit. If you look closely you can see where the various fabric extensions have been added, but for the most part it looks like it's always been big enough for a 10 year old boy to wear it.
We ordered her teeth from Amazon. They worked really well. They basically formed to her teeth. She could take them out and put them back in again over and over again. So she was able to wear them for every Halloween event.
Oh and funny story. She has a sore on her chin that she asked me to cover up with make up. I was like, "I don't have any concealer. Ask your dad if you can use his." So Lydia went to Brandon and he got out his theater make up and helped cover up her sore.
We drove both cars to the church so I could leave a little early to pick up the Pizza for the party.
We didn't decorate the car at all and I wasn't in a costume. But we were THERER and that was enough. I thought I should have made something like a Participant Ribbon to wear. Maybe I'll do that next year.
I LOVE my ward's trunk or treat. They do it in the daylight which I always appreciate. I hate trunk or treats in the dark.
The kids walked around and had fun getting candy from everyone.
Okay, for the rest of this post you might want to have a Halloween Playlist playing in the background. I HIGHLY suggest this one that was created by the guys from the Baconsale Podcast. They did a whole episode about the playlist and talked about each song. The episode is here. The kids and I based the playlist for their dance party on the Baconsale play list. (The Spooky Scary Skeletons song and the Heffalump and Woosels songs have become special favorites.)
I made it back to the house about 5 minutes ahead of the first guest. I was able to take a few pictures before things got too crazy. Here's one corner of the basement. Fake spiderwebs made it easy to decorate things.
We'd blown up balloons and decorated them with ghost and pumpkin faces.
The first guest was a boy. I think he was a little uncomfortable about being the first boy. But soon other boys came.
It was such a fun party. We had three boys, Isaac, Noah, and Silas. And four girls, Aurora, Gwen, Coral Ray, and a girl I can't remember her name. So that was 7 guests. Counting my 4 kids we had 11 kids running around. They were so funny. Everyone would be in the basement. Then the doorbell would ring and they would ALL run upstairs to see who it was. Then they'd all run back downstairs to hang out until the doorbell rang again.
Aurora and Gwen's mom Macey dropped her girls off and then hung around with me and Brandon. We thought the kids wouldn't want us in the basement, but they actually were just fine with us. We sat on one side of the room and talked while the kids did their own things on the other side.
A little before 9:00 parents started showing up to pick up their kids. And soon everyone was gone and we were left with a messy basement and a whole lot of memories.
We cleaned up a bit and then put everyone to bed.
Saturday was mostly a recovery day from all the craziness of the day before. I ran a few errands and did some yard work, but it wasn't anything big.
Brandon's Mom and Dad stopped by to drop off Charlotte and Lydia's presents. The girls had asked for money and that's what they got.
I took a long nap to prepare for the party that night. Brandon and I were going to a grown up Halloween Party that some of his friends from the play were throwing. Brandon had a mild case of the "Post Play Blues" so he was really looking forward to this chance to hang out with all his friends again.
The party would start at 7:00 and go until Midnight. Then the party would move to the Orpheum Theatre where they were showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show with a shadow cast. I wasn't exactly thrilled about the movie (or about the whole after midnight thing) but Brandon was so excite to hang out with his friends again so I planned on going to the movie. And that meant I really needed to take a nap.
After I woke up from my nap I got ready for the party. I'd been a little at a loss for what my costume would be. I was considering being a scarecrow with the little accessories that Charlotte used with her costume last year. But I didn't have an outfit that would really go with it. Plus I wasn't confident in my make up skills around a bunch of theatre people.
That morning I'd been rummaging through the costumes to find one of Veronica's skeleton gloves or something and I found the beret from Lydia's artist costume from 3 years ago. I knew immediately what my costume would be.
I had a black shirt dress that I'd bought at the $1 clothing sale in August. It was black and had long sleeves so it had been too hot to wear. But now the weather was perfect.
So I wore the black dress and the beret. I was going for an artist look, but I also kind of had a revolutionary vibe to my outfit.
Here we are together.
Brandon had made a deal with the kids. He set an alarm on someone's alarm clock and told the kids to go to bed when that alarm went off. He said if they went to bed at that time he buy them everything for an icecream party on Sunday. The kids loved that idea. It's so nice that they are all old enough that we don't have to get a babysitter. (And I totally already bought the ice cream party stuff because I knew they'd go to bed at the right time.)
There were a bunch of people from Guys and Dolls at the party. I told "Sarah" that Veronica's favorite part had been when she slapped Sky. I told "Adelaide" that Derrick put the poster from Guys and Dolls up in his room.
There were also people that Brandon didn't know from the theatre. Some were other theatre people that just hadn't been in Guys and Dolls and others were just friends with the hosts.
There was tons of good food all over the house. The garage was the main party area. At first we all just stood around and talked, but later there was some dancing in the garage. That was super fun.
Around 10:30 I got tired and so I plopped down on the living room couch and looked at a coffee table book with art based on The Lord of the Rings books. It was super interesting.
After church I was able to go to choir practice for the first time in a very long time. Our ward is oddly short on Sopranos so the choir director is always checking in with me to see if I have time for choir. She'd checked in a few weeks ago and I told her I'd be there as soon as Brandon finished his play. It was so fun to sing again. I wasn't sure if I was still a soprano after a summer of screaming my lungs out at Lagoon followed by a bought with a covid induced cough. But I think I still have most of my range.
At 11:30 the people who were left at the party started figuring out rides over to the Orpheum. We drove over and went inside to buy our tickets. This is where I ran into a problem. Alcohol was being served so this event was just for people over 21. The theatre was being very serious about ID's. And I didn't have mine at all. I told the guy at the counter, "I have a hair tie and my phone." He was like, "sorry, I need to see ID."
I looked at the time. There wasn't time to go home and get my ID and make it back in time for the show. And really if I went home I just wanted to stay there and go to bed.
So Brandon and I ended up just saying goodbye to everyone and going home. But even though we missed out on the meeting he'd had a great time with his friends.
We slept in the next morning. I really don't know what we are going to do next year when our church time changes to 9:00. We've become very used to 1:30.
Eventually I got ready for church. I ended up wearing the dress from the night before with leggings and a scarf.
One of the songs put me right into the Christmas spirit. I was like, "I want to make a gingerbread house now."
But we still were doing that Halloween thing. That night after dinner we carved pumpkins. Actually there was no we about it. The kids and Brandon did most of it. I was just kind of there.
I've heard people float the idea that Halloween should be only celebrated on the last Saturday of October. Up until this year I was like, "NO, Halloween is October 31st! No.Matter.What!"
But by Monday I was like, "How are we STILL celebrating Halloween? It's been going on for like 4 days!"
Still I pulled myself mostly together for this final day. And hey, this was Charlotte and Lydia's actual birthday so that made it special.
I ended up wearing that same black dress a third time in a row. I put it on when I woke up and wore it to work. But later I changed out of it because the day ended up being pretty warm and I didn't want to wear black.
We'd packed Derrick and Veronica's costumes into their backpacks the night before. They had to go to school looking like a "normal" kid. But after lunch they'd change into their costumes and have a parade.
Then I drove Charlotte and Lydia to school. They were having "Kindness Week" and could dress up every day of the week. Later dress up days were things like sports days or pajama day, but Monday was "Halloween." Lydia wore her Werewolf outfit and fangs. Charlotte brought her witches hat. Both girls were a little worried about wearing costumes. They didn't know what to expect. Well when we got to the school I could see a kid dressed up in an inflatable duck costume. I was like, "I think you girls will be fine."
I went to work and did about 2 hours of work. I could have stayed longer, but I just had too many other things to worry about.
I had to drive over to the work place for one of the PTO co-presidents and get a check signed. Then I took the check to Threads and picked up more beanies.
I went home and changed my clothes and ate something. Then I walked over to the school and started setting up a table to sell apparel during the parade.
The parents were all going to watch the parade from outside. So I was outside. Derrick and Veronica were both out there for lunch recess. They ran over and said hi. It's so fun to be able to see them at things like this.
I sold about $60 worth of apparel. I was hoping for cold weather to help me sell lots of beanies, but instead it was a really warm afternoon.
My friend Monica had come over and hung out at the table with me during the parade. She helped me clean up everything. Then she went to help another mom, Berenice, with bringing in merchandise for Mustang Day. I saw another mom, Patricia, come in to help make copies of the flier for Mustang Day.
Later I saw Amanda going around and taking pictures for the yearbook. And the two co-presidents, Lindsay and Alyssa were around cheering all the kids on. I was so happy that we have a functioning PTO this year. This time last year Liz was just barely starting as president and we barely had any other parents helping us out.
I went to find my kids. Here's Veronica in her class.
Then I went home and started wrapping Charlotte and Lydia's presents. I'd ordered them online and they'd only just arrived that afternoon.
Brandon came home from work and helped me. Derrick and veronica showed up around that time too.
Charlotte and Lydia were home after not too long.
The next three hours were just kind of nuts. Brandon made pizza. I got the front of the house set up for trick or treaters.
We ate pizza really fast and then it was time for presents.
My neighbors stopped by when they were done trick or treating. They had a group of three teenage girls that had gone out together. The girls stayed at the fire for a while roasting marshmallows and pairing them with different candies from their buckets. They also took a bunch of selfies.
While they were there my group of 6 came back. Suddenly every chair was full. Everyone was telling me about how much candy they were getting and how badly their feet hurt. It was really fun to have that many people around the fire.
Derrick and Veronica were done after two rounds. But Charlotte and Lydia were still going strong. Brandon ended up taking them out for two more rounds. (He has our neighborhood all figured out. There are certain streets that get very few kids. The people on those streets basically give our kids handfuls of candy if they come by after 8:00.)
Here's more pictures of the pumpkins. Derrick's had a light that changed colors. Everyone else had real candles.
I built up the fire really big and then took this picture. It wasn't that big the whole night.
Here's the neighbor girls and the big fire. They were there for at least 30 minutes.
Derrick went into the house and was pretty much done with Halloween. Veronica stayed outside and sat by the fire for a long time. We had a great time talking.
Here's the picture she took of me.
And a selfie I took.
Around 9:00 I started slowly cleaning things up. The last thing I put away was the fire. I doused it at 10:00.
The fire had been super fun. I heard some kids say, "Wow! Look at the FIRE house." I'm planning on being the fire house every year.
We got the kids to bed around 10:00 and I went to bed pretty much right after.
It had been a fun day, and weekend, and week, but I was very ready for a return to normal.
On Tuesday I let the kids sleep in a bit. Veronica actually didn't sleep in at all. She came into my bed during sometime in the night and was talking to me around 6:55. She was like, "Wow, we are sleeping in a lot." I was like, "I usually wake you up in 5 minutes."
Charlotte and Lydia also didn't stay in bed much longer than usual.
And even Derrick who I didn't want to disturb AT ALL came upstairs around 8:15.
I ended up dropping Veronica off at the school around 8:20. So she was only about 20 minutes late.
Charlotte and Lydia were dropped off at 8:40 so they were only like 5 minutes late.
And Derrick was dropped off around 8:50. So he was 50 minutes late.
I was back home in a quiet house by 9:00.
And that seems like a good place to stop.
Once again we survived another Birth-O-Ween.
Thanks for reading.
