Haloweening-- a tale of two weekends

This year's Halloween season has stretched out nicely, with plenty of opportunities for the children to  showcase Nat's homemade costumes and gather far too much candy.  You've already heard about the Lee Road candy crawl.  The next day-- a perfect evening to wander the Botanical Gardens by night. The pictures don't do it justice as they can't capture the smell of woodsmoke from the chimneas on the patio, or the perfect temperature of the air, or the spooky pirate music emanating from the treehouse, or any of the magic of the crowded, darkened Children's garden, where we could hardly keep track of which candy stations we'd visited.   Here's a little (kind of  blurry) taste, though...

The only one with Ivy's full Jawa costume in place...

This guy, and his lightsaber...

Spooky magic...

Fortune telling...

What happens when you take Darth Vader to a party...

drinking problem...

Amanda, dressed as Darth Vader,  dressed as a pumpkin... Meta.

Donuts!  And, all the infernal props.  Note to self:  next year, no props with the costumes. 

OK, going on.


 Last Saturday, all day, was one of those perfect fall days that lead you to believe the weather will just stay like that forever.  Based on that assumption, we made plans to meet friends at the beach the next day, eager to share the joy of our "Lake Sundays".

It WAS a beautiful day.

And windy.  Very, very windy.

And kind of cold.

 And it sure seemed like we weren't going to have a very good time when we first got there.

In fact, I was feeling more than a little guilty about talking our friends, and my mom, and my sister, all into joining us.

Lookie!!  Three springers!!!

 But we need not have feared.  The lake worked it's magic.

 Boys wrestled and dogs ran and adults talked and our cheeks and ears burned with cold and it was really pretty wonderful.

 If we'd known the turn the weather was to take by the following weekend, we might have enjoyed it even more.

Ivy sure loves Joe.

But I think we still did pretty well...

Running up the hill... so they could roll back down... through the leaves... in the sunshine...

A few hours back home to make our windblown selves presentable, and then we topped off the day with the WSC fall concert.  A 5:00pm start time meant we could bring the kids.  Here they are learning about the violin from one of our performers.

 It was a lovely concert, full of wonderful, big-voiced, audience friendly songs.  I had at least 75% of the music memorized, which felt great.  And left me able to look out into the audience and see my whole family there.  Which also felt great.  The kids were each able to name a favorite part (Ivy said, "that first song you sang" -- Christiansen's Praise to the Lord-- while Jack preferred "the one with the banjo and fiddle-- Bile them Cabbage Down...) so they must have enjoyed the experience at least a little bit..

Our weekend stretched on a little bit into the work week, as we headed to Tiffany's home to spend the weekend with good friends from out of town.  It was a splendid afternoon, easy to pretend the weekend wasn't over yet...

Porch-sitting weather... (at Eton Place to shop at Trader Joe's and admire the iPhone 6 at the Apple store)

Football-playing weather (these boys are getting pretty good at passing!)

Eating-pizza-in-the-grass weather...

 It was great to spend an evening catching up with Becky...

..made even better by the fact that the kids all had a blast together...

We sure do love our friends.

Fast forward through the week...
Rainy Tuesday.  Nat and I decided to take our walk at Lakewood Park despite the drizzle-- and we were rewarded with this:

Thursday-- the kids have started gymnastics!  They had a blast.  The classes are 90 minutes long and Jack  was a wild man, pushing his little self to the limit the entire time.  He had sore abs the next day!  He'll be one strong little boy by the end of this... I am just so glad he decided to give it a try, as it's been quite a process to talk him into this.  Despite his sometimes-paralyzing fear of making mistakes, he put himself out there and took tons of risks, trying new skills left and right-- and ended the day smiling.  So proud of him.  Ivy, of course, had no problem heading off into the huge, crowded gym with her new teacher.  Crazy how different two kids can be...

We had originally planned to attend yet another Halloween event on Thursday-- the Coventry Road candy crawl, because ALL the business districts have to have one, of course-- but the kids were too wiped out to do anything more than have dinner and ice cream at McDonalds.  :)

And... Halloween!  Finally!

A grueling day of school parties...

... culminating in a drizzly, chilly, very Halloween-y evening that was just about right..

This year's porch decor...

Jack's pumpkin.

Ivy's...

One of our crafty attempts -- glowing spider eggs...

And another-- Nat's brainstorm, trick-or-treat pumpkin plus flashlight plus trash bag.  Pinterest worthy, no?

The best of the posed shots before heading out:

The only one we got of Ivy as an actual Jawa ( with the third and finally-right version of the glowing eyes) before she abandoned her mask and hood in favor of a witch hat...

And off they go!

 Passing out candy at home, afterwards...

Ivy was so terribly proud of this awful tatoo on her neck.  She was hoping to wear it to school on Monday to show her friends...  Sadly... ahem... it has come off already..

Trading loot and eating pizza back at home while the adults drank cocoa with Bailey's and lounged.   Just what the doctor ordered.

It's been a cold and wet weekend since then.  We took it easy on Saturday with an unheard of, "mostly at home" day, bowing out of two parties because of a coughing and sneezing boy.

Couldn't let that happen two days in a row, so today we went to Ikea.   It was a nice day for a drive, plus we had an extra hour today.  Why not?

We are currently grappling with that special kind of buyer's remorse that comes from spending gobs of money on wonderful things that will make your life more beautiful and organized... only to realize just how much unpacking, assembling and general work now stands between you and that new, more beautiful life... sigh.   It's OK-- the beauty of Ikea is that our new bed will rest happily in its three flat-pack boxes until we get around to ripping up carpet, refinishing floors, and getting the room ready to house it.  Nothing like starting a major project to welcome the holiday season, right?

Wishing you a happy week, from our crazy family to yours!