Halloween

(I couldn't get many pictures. After a quick dinner of mummy hot dogs, these guys were ready to scatter and get the night started.)

Today started out with some rain, which concerned me for a minute because I didn't even realize it was supposed to rain at all today. I was hoping it wasn't going to be one of those days where it was cloudy, cold and raining off and on. That isn't good Halloween weather! - BUT rain has moved on, and it is sunny outside. It's a pretty day today. Chilly and fall like, but pretty.

This Halloween has a weirdness to it. Mike is overseas, Megan went to a Halloween party at a friend's house where the girls had pizza and then headed out to the neighborhood to trick or treat. Matthew went with his friend that he went with last year, (and made sure to stop at an old teacher's house who lives on Main Street who gives out cans of soda. Trust me, daily when we pass her house, somebody always says, "She gives out soda on Halloween!" and Trevor ended up going with a friend of his to our old neighborhood in Union. His friend's mom knows somebody out there (in the BIG houses with the full size candy bars!) So it was just me and the house. It feels strange...I love Halloween. I'm usually more into it than I have been this year. (I just pulled out the decorations yesterday!) This year though, with the kids all having plans, I don't need to be the mom walking around with them. Which I kind of miss. Although somebody needs to be here to hand out candy too.

No matter what, it was fun to see the kids all come home with their buckets full of stuff and all the excitement that happens when you dump it all on the floor and start trading. Trevor had a friend who couldn't go out tonight, so he has a huge gallon size freezer bag full of candy for him. (The less around here the better so I don't get into it!)

Wanted to add, because the differences in tastes is interesting:

Favorite candy

Megan: chocolate. She dumped out her bucket at the party she was at and picked through to get all of the chocolate stuff out. Another girl there didn't like chocolate, so they traded chocolate for fruity candy. Her favorites (especially judging by the wrappers thrown back in after eating) peanut butter cups, butterfinger, snickers, twix and hershey's.

Trevor: scored huge with full size candy bars, and is pretty protective of the several snickers ones that he got. He's pretty equal opportunity candy lover, but he really loves anything gummy, fruity and sour.

Matthew: Still is in the habit of picking out anything with peanut butter or peanuts and gives it away. Poor guy. He asked me what a snickers tasted like and I told him the closest I could think of was a milky way, without nuts. I think he's always been afraid of milky way because he ate his first one this year. - AND loved it. He loves twix, kit kat, starburst (no skittles...lol.) and suckers. Plus the one can of soda that he purposely went to the teacher's house to get.



I have been painting today. Nothing like company coming to motivate with something I have been wanting to do anyway. I have been working on the stairwell, which means that the ladder has come out. I noticed it the other day when it was out too....that this ladder is kind of a scrapbook in it's own way. We've had it for a long time. There are remnants of paint from so many places that we have moved to and tried to improve in our own little way. I always like painting. It makes things feel clean and like my own. - Plus I love tan. I know, right? Thrilling color. - But I love tan. There....I own it.

So I notice all these different colors on the ladder. There is a bit of pink and lime green from Megan's old rooms. One pink is from the house on Bosal, and the other with the green is from Spur. Along with other Spur house colors.....red from Trevor's room, Blue from Matthew's room, Orange from the bathroom. Chocolate (the prettiest color I haven't been able to duplicate) from the living room and dining room in the same house. Along with several different shades of tan from several different houses.

You know what though? I love it. In a way, it is the portable version of people charting the growth of their children on a door jamb. I can see the growth of my family in the colors that are left. I'll purposely have to paint a swatch of the new tan to add to it now.