Halloween Extravaganza

I wanted to tell all my Halloween stories at once, so here we are. (This will be a long post--we did a lot for Halloween, and I'm not really known for my short-windedness.) The church's trunk-or-treat was Tuesday evening (as I have heretofore mentioned). John went as Bowler Hat Guy from Meet the Robinsons. (Seen here without the bowler hat--he has a curly moustache above that very un-Bowler Hat Guy smile). The "trunk" part of trunk-or-treat was omitted due to fears about snow, so we passed out candy in the cultural hall. (Unfounded fears, I should add. The weather was bee-yewtiful.)
I was the fairy godmother from Cinderella. Naomi was Nancy from Enchanted. (No, not Giselle, as you might expect, but Nancy--the other woman.)
Bella was the Pea. (Seen here in her post-flaming fit nap. I wasn't about to wake her to put her costume on.)
Some more friends (Halle as Aurora and Madison as a nice witch) on the cultural hall stage.
On Wednesday, Olivia decided she had a bee in her bonnet about making Halloween cookies for the neighbors. I decided that since John wouldn't be home until late, we could indulge this neighborly whim, and she and I went to town: making dough, cutting out spooky shapes, and baking all sorts of delicious cookies. Don't they look great?Well, maybe not, but the plan was to decorate them on Thursday after school and pass them out on pretty Halloween plates with friendly "From the Wells Family" tags. My visiting teachers (love them!) arrived after the baking was done, and I sat down to have a delightful chat. Olivia asked me if she could give some cookies to our friends, and I told her, "Of course!" She prepared a twist-tie bread bag of plain sugar cookies for each of my visiting teachers, and they were appropriately grateful. As we continued to chat, I heard the front door open and close, then open and close again, and again. I was curious as to who was going outside and what they were doing when Olivia ran back into the room, followed closely by Naomi, and declared, "I gave away all the piles of cookies!" I wondered what the neighbors (some of whom we had not yet met) had thought when answering the door to two little girls, dressed in spaghetti-strap fairy dresses and no shoes, delivering bread bags of plain sugar cookies. I decided to laugh rather than be embarrassed.
On Thursday, we had our Wives' Club Halloween party at Bonnie's house. We were supposed to bring Halloween treats, so the girls and I made spooky Oreo spiders.
They are very easy and fun to make, and I think the kids at the party loved them. (Who doesn't love Oreos, pretzels, and Reese's pieces?)When Olivia got home from school, we dressed up in our costumes again, and headed to the Fall Festival on Notre Dame campus. Where we ran into Clifton (the little boy in the middle) from Olivia's kindergarten class. He and his older brother were very fun, and a game of "run around the crowd" ensued. This was followed by fantastic face painting from the Notre Dame art students. (Olivia got a red sparkly heart on her cheek, and Naomi wanted a princess, but got just a crown instead.)We waited in line for both the bounce house and the haunted house, but the girls got sick of it just shy of it being our turn (both times!). They decided they were happy just to get a picture with this very spooky inflatable spider.As John was on call, we went to the hospital to eat with him, only to find him busy with an admission and unable to eat with us. So I braved the cafeteria as the only adult with three small children. Now that's scary! On the way out, the girls rolled down the wheelchair ramp in their beautiful princess dresses, as the refined and polite young ladies they are.
On Halloween day, I got both girls ready in their costumes first thing in the morning (this makes three days of dressing up--I think you can't ask for more than that, really). Naomi went with Kelly to trick-or-treat at the residency clinic--very fun! And Annabel and I went to Olivia's kindergarten class to put on the Halloween party. I learned these things:
*Pumpkin bowling is a huge hit. Everyone could play that again and again.
*There are moms who, when asked to bring a healthy snack to a class of 16 kids, are dumb enough to bring 12 cupcakes. Who does that?
*Kindergarten boys are at least 5 times as likely to cry over the outcome of a (non-competitive) game than kindergarten girls.
We came home and detoxed with a short nap, and then the girls and I made dinner. I found this recipe (if you can call it that) for mummy pizzas in Family Fun magazine. My girls are out on olives, so I just cut some pepperonis smaller for the eyes. Isn't it sad that the food never looks as good in real life as it does in a magazine-styled photograph? They were delicious, nonetheless. I would like to do an entire theme menu for next year's Halloween, a la my cousin Andrea. That looks fun!Then we went out trick-or-treating. It was fun to meet the neighbors the girls had taken the cookies to. We had three houses that had gotten a special treat just for my girls, to repay them for the "delicious cookies." I'm not saying that I'd have Liv head out to strangers' houses again all by herself, but it sure broke the ice.
One more time, with the princess dresses. Olivia's was made with the last of the bridal store fabric that I got last year when a woman in my ward in Toledo was selling her shop after 20-or-so years. I think it turned out delightful. I just had to buy the gold ribbon down the front and the zipper for the back. Practically free!So, that's it! Our Halloween adventures. It was a fun-filled, crazy-making week. I'm glad we did everything we did, and I'm glad it won't come around again until next October. Maybe I better start gearing up now.