Halloween version 09

Ah, Halloween. What can I say? Excessive amounts of candy eaten, rain and darkness, running and giggling, hair sprayed, costumes gathered and worn.

My Mom couldn't stand to miss the fun and tried to come down and visit. The original plan was to drive down with my Dad for the weekend. No such luck. This is a college town and every hotel was full up with rabid football fans. Fine. Mom decided the heck with my Dad, she'd just come alone on the train and crash in the bottom bunk in Julia's room. Who needs a hotel anyway?

The train arrives and grandkids go running!

My kids refer to my Mom as "Cracker". Nine years ago my poor mother was trying to decide what she wanted to be called when her first grandchild was born and came up with "Gram". My gma is Nana, my Dad's mom was Granny and Dave's folks are Grandma and Pa. Gram lasted about 3 weeks into Julia's life before Dave started referring to her as "the Gram Cracker". Cracker was one of Julia's first words, and now it's stuck. The kids will be horribly embarrassed one day. But that's the job of family, isn't it?

We spent Saturday morning before trick or treating like this:

And at the art museum on campus. Living in a college town has some benefits - free admission to the art museum and natural history museums on game days. This was the fabulous current exhibit:

How perfect for Tate!

Back home we carved our pumpkins. Maisie insisted on carving a little one from our garden patch. I grew a small variety of pumpkin since we have a pretty small garden. Rooster didn't care. She had fallen in love with this pumpkin when it was still a seed.

Tate was grossed out by the pumpkin guts and only posed working on his. He decided observing from afar was the best plan. He can totally sneer like Elvis. I'm so proud. I need a better picture of it, but you get the idea.

Julia was not so put off by the "eeew" factor.

Here are the finished jack-o-lanterns. Can you guess whose is whose? Hint: the middle airplane thing is actually an X-wing. Google it if you are not dorky enough to know what that is.

That's hair color spray next to the small pumpkin. Had I not had a lighter, I could have utilized my Camp Fire Girl training to start a fire with it. (Think survival in the 1980's - what resources would you have? Aquanet, of course! Who needs flint?)

Here's Rooster getting her hair done. She was a little weirded out by the process. Oddly, the hair color only showed up in natural light outside and looked just blonde inside. I had to take this picture so she'd believe me that her hair was green. (I was too lazy to re-set the date on the camera, btw. Ignore it.)

Hey look! It's Glinda the Good Witch and Anakin Skywalker! (Guess who commandeered the camera? Hint: they cared enough to reset the date.)

And a witchy Roo!

I was not impressed by the funky green face paint, but Maisie insisted it was necessary. Personally, I think she looks like she's in the witch ROTC.

Here's Glinda and Dorothy. Can you tell we live in rainy Oregon? Dorothy wouldn't need an umbrella in Kansas!

Anakin has ditched his lightsaber for a lollipop. The Force (of sugar) was obviously with him.

"Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?"

After the fun was over and the grouchies set in we went home, tortured kids through hair washing (hair dye + rain = not so nice) and sent everyone to bed. The kids left out their candy for the Sugar Fairy. She's a nice little sprite who gathers up all the leftover junk and leaves a surprise in it's place. The kids are always so stuffed by bedtime and sick to their stomachs that they are happy to leave the remains to be gathered up. And the gluten/dairy/artificial colored/can't-eat-it-anyway candy problem vanishes. No begging, no sneaking. Just one crazy night. That's what it's all about anyway, right?