Happy Halloween!

Remember that exciting field trip Biscuit went on? Well, his class painted the pumpkins they got from the pumpkin patch. They also painted paper bags pumpkins to hold goodies from their fall festival today.

Biscuit said his pumpkin has a face on one side and a cape on the other side. I don't quite see it, but he does, and I guess that's what counts.

They played games like sack races and ring toss. They had cupcakes, chips and other snacks. They got bags of candy and goodies to bring home in their pumpkin bags. It sounds like he had a good day.

Biscuit wore his costume all day.

"Were you able to handle the bathroom okay?" I asked him.

"Mom!" Biscuit said. "I just asked someone to undo the back of my costume, and then everything was fine." He gets so exasperated with his mother sometimes!

"So you wore your costume the whole time you were at daycare?" I asked him.

"Yes, and I even wore it a naptime," Biscuit said. "And guess what? I didn't need a blanket!"

I was a little mad at the other parents. Biscuit was the only kid in his class who wore his costume. I'm not sure what the deal was, but all the other kids were jealous that Biscuit was wearing his costume, and they didn't get to wear theirs. I hope they all went home and gave their parents lots of grief!

Anyway, I picked up Biscuit and brought him home for a quick dinner. Then we were off for trick-or-treating.

I always take him around our cul-de-sac and to some older neighbors' house across the street. They love seeing him and talk about how he's growing up so fast. We've been really lucky that we still have all the same neighbors we had when we moved into our house 10 years ago. And they're all very nice people.

The neighbors loaded Biscuit up with enough candy that we really didn't even need to go to anymore houses. But one of my friends lives on a longer cul-de-sac. I'm guessing about 10 or 12 houses. We went there two years ago, and it was a nice area. Because it's a dead end street, there are no cars coming in and out. And that was just enough houses to get good candy without being completely worn out. So we met another couple and their little boy over there. The boys got a nice haul, and Jeff and I enjoyed hanging out with the other couple.

Here's Biscuit's haul:

And if you're wondering what we could possibly do with all that candy ... well, we had one idea.

Ghost of Halloween past

Here are some pictures of Biscuit's Halloweens past:

2009: My little monkey

2010: The crayon family

2010: Frankenstein in Halloween pajamas

2011: Firefighter Biscuit

2012: Cowboy at the beach

The wheels on the bus ...

Biscuit has known the song about the wheels on the bus going round and round for a long time now. But today, he experienced that round and round firsthand.

Biscuit went on his first field trip today. The kids in his class went to a pumpkin patch at a church about 3 miles from day care.

Let me have a quick pity party. All day, I felt a little pang in my gut knowing he was having a new, fun experience that I wasn't any part of. I know that's probably selfish on my part, but I've been a part of all the new and fun experiences he's had so far. Now, it's like he has this whole part of his life that doesn't include me. 

It started when we enrolled him in day care. I've read and heard all the arguments and pros and cons for and against kids being put in day care. But for me, I knew that's the way it would be. Being an older mom, I had been working for a long time before I even thought about Biscuit, and I knew when he arrived that I wanted to keep working. I also knew that financially, if we wanted to keep our current lifestyle, I would have to work. I realize how lucky I am to even have a choice, and I haven't regretted my decision. Plus, I think about how Biscuit has grown and learned since he's been in day care, and how much he's enjoyed it, and I know it was the right decision for us.

But every once in a while, for just a minute or two, I wonder what it would be like to be with him more.

And then he sits at the table, and in a voice that's so excited it exaggerates his stutter, he tells me all about how he got to ride a bus today. And they didn't have car seats. They had big-boy seats with big-boy seat belts. And the pumpkin patch was at that church like you're coming home from my old day care.

And there were two old lady stories.

Wait. Old lady stories?

Yes. Two stories about two old ladies. One of them swallowed a bat. And then she swallowed an owl to scare the bat. And then she swallowed a goblin to get the owl. And the other old lady, I don't remember what she did.

And they had lots of pumpkins there. They had big pumpkins and medium-sized pumpkins and small pumpkins all over the place. And he thought they were going to get to pick out their own pumpkins, but those people picked out pumpkins for them. And they put tape on the bottom and wrote their names on them, and they could take them home tonight if they wanted to, but they have to bring them back tomorrow because they're going to paint them.

Whew! It made me tired just hearing about it!

So despite the feelings of guilt or jealousy about Biscuit sharing these experiences firsthand with other people, I really love having that moment when I see the whole thing filtered through his eyes and his words and his personality.

Spooky decorations

Biscuit asked if we could put up outside decorations for Halloween this year. And since I love holidays, I said of course we could. I already had a box of Halloween and fall decorations in the attic, so I dug them out.

We have a couple of light-up pumpkins, a couple of scarecrows, a small bale of hay, some light-up skeleton heads, a string of pumpkin lights, a string of ghost lights and some fun blinking lights that look like assorted pairs of eyeballs that we hang in our shrubbery.

We got everything put out and plugged into a timer. Now that it's getting dark earlier, the lights are starting to turn themselves on by the time we get home.

It seems like more and more people are putting up Halloween decorations these days, so on our way home the other evening, we took a cruise around our neighborhood to look for ghosts and goblins.

We came upon our house from the backside of the neighborhood, and I said, "What kind of crazy people would let monsters live in their shrubs?"

"Hmmm," Biscuit said. "I'm not sure. Let's investigate."

I pulled into the driveway, and we got out.

"Mom!" Biscuit said. "WE'RE the crazy people!"

Here are a couple of pictures of our decor, along with a video of the monsters in the shrubs.

These pumpkins are made of
soft foam and are reusable.

The scarecrows are stuck into a
hay bale covered in fall leaves.

Halloween party

Jeff, Biscuit and I went to an annual Halloween party this evening where we hung out with friends, ate lots of yummy food and had an overall good time.

Back in September, I asked Biscuit, "What would you like to be for Halloween?"

And he said, "I guess I'll just be a firefighter."

And I said, "What do you mean you GUESS you'll just be a firefighter."

"What else can I be?" he asked.

"Oh, sweet boy," I said, "you can be anything you want to be."

So I named off all the possible costumes I could think of, and he got really excited to imagine being a superhero. I asked him if he wanted me to make him a costume or if he wanted to buy one.

"Can we go to the store and look at them?" Biscuit asked.

It took walking halfway down the costume aisle, and Biscuit's decision was made.

Meanwhile, I hadn't even thought about mine and Jeff's costumes. I did a couple of searches on the Internet, but I didn't see anything that really spoke to me.

So we decided since Biscuit was going as a superhero, Jeff and I could be villains.

Here's who we're supposed to be - Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus aka Doc Ock.

Here's how it turned out. See Biscuit's web-shooting hand positions?

It was a potluck event, and my plan was to make cupcakes. I found these cool little cake decorations that looked like knives. So I wanted to stab one into each cake with a little red gel icing around it. But as much as I hate to admit this, I ran out of time today, and I drove to the grocery store and bought cupcakes. I PAID MONEY FOR CUPCAKES BAKED BY A GROCERY STORE!!!

Anyone who knows me will know this is not normal for me. I called my Mama on the way to the store because I knew she would get a kick out of me telling her.

She answered, and I said, "I have to tell you something, and you can't judge me for it."

"Uh-oh," she said. "What is it?"

"I'm on the way to the grocery store to BUY cupcakes," I said.

"Do whaaaat?" she said, in full Southern drawl. "What have you been doing all day?"

"Finishing YOUR grandson's new room," I said with much attitude.

She laughed and said, "Well, if you see anybody in the store that might know me, just don't tell them that you belong to me."

I called her again on the way back home. "It's done," I said.

She made a clicking noise with her mouth and said, "That's just SHAMEFUL!" and started laughing again.

Here are my store-bought-but-Kim-decorated cupcakes:

Do you hear that "reek, reek, reek, reek" noise from the horror movies?