Little Brick Houses for You and Me: Halloween 2015

It's the week after Halloween. What this means is there is a huge grocery bag of candy stashed on top of the refrigerator and I am spending a lot of time hiding in the corner of the kitchen trying to open candy bars and bags of mini M&M's without crinkling the wrappers and attracting the attention of Ben and Tessa who will come running at the first rip of a bag. I am also probably discreetly trying to use the iPad without them spotting me and remembering it exists and instantly having screaming meltdowns at the sight of it. Ugh. Sometimes I wonder what my life has come to. Here I am, a free adult in America, hiding the most mundane activities while two toddlers hold my TV hostage and whine whenever something animated is not playing. My brain is turning to mush.

Halloween was fun. On Friday Ben had a party at preschool. We were invited to send treats for the class. This was my first time sending treats to school in what will probably be many years of such activities. Times have changed from when my mom would sent pans of bars and homemade cookies. Due to food allergy issues and probably concerns about poisoning (who knows) treats must be store bought now so no baking cookies or cupcakes or anything like that. I was going to be a slacker and just send mini kit kat bars or some other peanut free piece of candy but then my mom reminded me of a craft we used make when I was a child. I guess "craft" is a stretch but this is it:

It's a lollipop with a Kleenex tied over it to look like a ghost. We happened to have a bag of mini tootsie roll pops in the cupboard so I made up the right number of these and felt pretty pleased with myself.

He ended up with a huge haul from school. This is it, spread on the counter. I was pretty surprised by the lengths some of his classmate's moms (or dads, but I'm guessing it was moms) went for this day. There were plenty of single candy bars but there were also quite a few little goodie bags and creatively packaged treats.

The scissors were not part of the party treats...

My favorites were these Halloween novelty rings and bracelet. I liked them because they remind me of the prizes we used to get at the Halloween carnival we had in my hometown for elementary school kids.

That friendship bracelet is so 90s!

There were several non-candy bags filled with little party favors like erasers, stickers, and notepads.

I appreciate what people are thinking with these sorts of treats but I am not opposed to a big candy binge a few times a year! Ben liked this stuff though so I guess it was a good idea.

And of course, someone went THERE...

The expensive organic health food granola bar. This is a huge upgrade from the Walmart or Target brand chewy granola bars I buy all the time so thank you to whoever sent this. I am impressed.

There were also fun little toys that both kids are still playing with today which is quite a feat.

The playdough is awesome. Way more than I would have done, but a really cool idea.

This was a real favorite. It is a sticky pumpkin on a long sticky, stretchy string that you can fling at the wall or wherever and it will stick and then come off again and again.

When I was in elementary school my dad played softball and every year the team went to a state tournament in Jamestown. We always stayed at whatever hotel is right by the interstate across from the tiny little mall they have there and it had a grassy lawn in the back off the pool area. From what I remember, the adults all sat around on this lawn drinking and joking around when the team wasn't playing in games and all of the kids (there were many of us) roamed around and swam and walked to the mall mostly unsupervised. There was a $.25 junk machine in the hotel that dispensed these little sticky things and all of the kids ended up with them and we were always flinging them all over the hotel. Fun times were had by all. Ben flung his around so many times after the party that it broke that same day.

Here he is in his costume before school. He is a football player. We had a set of youth xs shoulder pads that we were going to have him wear but they were way too big and also we borrowed a Bison helmet but we hadn't picked it up yet on Friday morning.

Saturday night we costumed up (the kids, not the parents!) and walked around our cul de sac and then drove around to visit friends. Tessa wore the bear costume Ben wore when he was 2 and a little Halloween skirt my aunt made her.

Ben had his helmet for the night.

Milo was a pumpkin! He slept the whole time we were out. We left around 5:45 and returned home around 10:00 (our last stop was at a friend's house and they had a bonfire going!) and he never woke up once. He never left his car seat. It made the evening easier for us although it would have been fun to show him off!