Hope everyone had a great Halloween!  Ours was surprisingly busy.  And I am surprisingly glad that it is over.  I think I’m just excited for November and all the things in store the next few weeks!

Friday morning we stopped by Stevie’s preschool for the Halloween parade.  If you imagined that Stevie was super excited to wear his costume and show it off to his friends, then you are imagining it all wrong.  Or maybe you’re imagining a different Stevie.  Even though he loved the costume just days before this, we basically told him he had to wear it to school or else he wouldn’t get any treats at his party.  So he reluctantly put it on, and for the next 2 hours repeated to us and his teachers “I WANT MY TREAT” (sorry teachers!)  Once he started getting lots of attention for how cute he looked though, he again came around to the idea of being Olaf.

We filled the rest of our afternoon with therapy, a photo session, the school’s Halloween Carnival and were pooped by 7pm.  But Paul and I still met friends for drinks later that night.  #totallyworthit

On Saturday morning, we stopped by the local community center’s Halloween party where Stevie got to play some games and eat some goodies.  We weren’t even trying to put him in a costume because Stevie. Also because it was hot.  Luckily the games were perfect for him because they all involved rolling or throwing a ball into some sort of hole.  I mean, the creative minds behind this – to make 14 different game stations with essentially the same premise for all of them?  There was a high success rate, so we liked that for Stevie.  And he liked getting a little scared in the haunted house.  Even though we spent a good majority of the time hiding candy from him and talking him out of another lollipop, it was all in good fun.  My favorite part had to be when he knocked over an entire photo backdrop though.

Saturday afternoon, we were invited to a friends’ Halloween party and that was so nice.  A bunch of kids, a bunch of food and promises of trick or treating.  Stevie had a great time and at one point I turned to Paul and whispered “Look at us.  We are at the grown-up table, sitting and talking, while Stevie is over there playing.”  We weren’t being referees.  We weren’t being safety awareness officers.  We weren’t showing him how to play.  We were just hanging back and having real life conversations about houses and water bills and campers and normal stuff like that.  It was a big ol’ relief of a moment.

We wore our “day costumes” since we knew it would be a hot one.  But for trick or treating, we had to put on the real getup.  By this time, Stevie was a little out of it.  After our busy day (and his lousy cold), he just wanted to go home.  Or go to grandma’s.  But he got through a full block and when we got home, he enjoyed taking the candy out of his pumpkin one by one.  Then putting it back in. Then taking it out.  We practiced counting and talked about the different colors of each one.  And never got around to eating it. Phew!

   Paul and I topped off the evening with a couple of friends and stopped by favorite local haunted house.  It was as good as ever.  The work they put into this thing every year.  It’s unreal!  On Sunday I pretty much worked all day.  Busy season.  You know.

Oh!  And in case you missed it – IT’S NOVEMBER NOW.