And our little pea. This costume goes down in history as my best bargain purchase ever!! I bought it during one of my garage saling days the summer before Reese was born. Since she was due Oct. 25th I didn't want to spend mucho dollars on a costume just in case she was still swimming around inside me come Halloween. But I went ahead and "splurged" on this costume for 50 cents. All 3 of our kids have worn it and I believe it will definitely be one of my keepsakes for life.
A new dimension to the "pea in the pod" experience this time around was that Tate rather enjoyed pulling off the nerf ball peas and eating them. (Reese and Drue were 2 weeks old and 1 month old respectively when they were "the pea".)
Desperate times call for creative measures. I am a procrastinator at heart and when 3 kids are added to the equation, things are often done at the last minute or not at all. We didn't make it to the pumpkin patch until this past Sunday. And we never quite found the time since then to carve our pumpkins. Since I didn't want to win the "lamest porch on the block award" for not having any cool jack-o-lanterns displayed, I quickly threw together this snowman using chocolate chips for the eyes and mouth.
Last night was a beautiful evening and I even ran to the grocery store in my shorts. But of course, as is the curse of Halloween, it was FREEZING tonight!! Last year Reese's little hands were so frozen by the time we got home she couldn't even open her candy. (Which wasn't altogether a bad thing...oh, come on, they thawed out eventually). This year I broke the bad news to Reese that she would have to wear pants under her mermaid costume. (A few tears and minimal pouting ensued).
"Whoever heard of a princess wearing tights and pants?!", she sarcastically inquired.
"I'll bet the ones who live in Alaska do!", I quickly retorted.
I do remember what a bummer it was to spend so much time deciding on, and making the coolest Halloween costume, only to have to cover it up with a boring winter jacket. (I was one of those kids who usually opted to layer as many clothes as I could underneath so as not to take away from my creation. I probably ended up getting a lot less candy that way because the people whose houses I went to didn't want to encourage my "obesity" by giving me too much).
David and I originally planned to take turns taking the girls around the neighborhood while the other one camped out at the homestead to watch Tate and eat, I mean, pass out our candy. (Funny, David volunteered mighty quickly to take the first shift of staying home). I bundled the girls up with mittens and coats and off we went.
Drue actually got the hang of trick-or-treating pretty quickly and it was so cute to hear her say "Twick-or-Tweat" and "Fank you" at every house. I ended up holding her bucket for awhile and sometimes she wouldn't see them put candy in it, so she would keep standing there saying "Trick-or-Treat" until I would finally convince her that, yes, indeed, some candy had been dropped into her bucket. Reese only took a few spills as she is prone to do and you would have thought she was carrying a load of diamonds the way she would dive to the ground collecting all her fallen pieces of candy with an urgency in her voice, "Help me Mommy! Help me!!".
Right after we finished at the first house, Reese began plotting her plan to ring the doorbell at our house and surprise her daddy. She was more excited to do that anything else. After each house she would say, "Now we can go ring our doorbell?".
I seriously doubt that I will ever be one of those magically prepared mothers. You know the ones...they pack their diaper bags the night before rather than scrambling around stuffing random outfits into it and snatching "one more diaper" on their way out the door. They anticipate that their children will inevitably become "starving" before the first errand is complete, so they pack some healthy snacks into those neat little plastic containers, rather than presenting them with a few stray fries from yesterday's trip to McDonalds that managed to stow away in their carseats. And the kicker, they always manage to whip out a hankie just at the exact moment their little one raises their head back to begin a sneeze. So, why, oh, why, knowing that on any given day between the beginning of September through the end of February, at least one of my children will have the sniffles, did I leave on our jaunt without any kleenex?! Drue sneezed no less than 17 times while we were out. When the first sneeze occurred, I stupidly looked around like there might actually be something available in the great outdoors for me to use. My bewildered eyes finally landed on...you guessed it....the super soft sleeve of my fleece jacket. (Here's the beauty of it though, it actually wasn't my jacket, I had borrowed David's). By the time we returned home, I kid you not, (well, maybe just a little) I had to wring my sleeve out before we headed in the door. I'm sure it could have filled one of those rain gauge thingies.....
Of course it wouldn't be a complete night out with my girls without one of them innocently saying something embarrassing. We walked up to a house that has the same floorplan as ours and they had piles upon piles of junk in the living room and dining room. Thankfully, Reese waited until we started to walk away before she said, "Mommy, are they having a garage sale?". "What do you mean," I laughed. "Well, they sure do have a lot of stuff out."
We finally made it back to our house and the girls were content to call it quits for the night. Reese said she had no idea trick-or-treating would be so fun. It's neat to think these little memories will stay with her for her entire lifetime. With Daddy's prompting, they poured out all their loot on the living room floor and picked a few pieces to eat. They looked over all the chocolates, starbursts, etc. then ran to the kitchen and asked if they could have a piece of cheese! Well, I guess so...just this once girls....
They both enjoyed running to the door when the other kids came by our house. I was priding myself on how smart my little Drue was figuring out this whole Halloween deal so quickly when I heard her saying "Twick-or-Tweat" to the kids at our door, and standing there expecting them to give her some of their candy. Would you believe they all looked at her like she was off her rocker and not one of the little selfish things gave her any?
It was a fun night...I'm exhausted...Tate is still trying to figure out what is up with this whole time change mess...and why he is not in his cozy crib as soon as darkness falls. So good night all you little ghosts and goblins....
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