Halloween Night

Last year I felt like a bad mom for not taking pictures of my kids on Halloween. As it turns out, both of them fit into last year's costumes and so we just used those. The great thing about this year is that Hank wasn't completely smothered in his toasty costume and Audrey wasn't dragging her pants along the muddy pavement. Speaking of muddy, this Halloween was NOT. It was great!

We went out with my sister, her husband and their four kids. This was also Henry's first year not riding in the stroller. It was not quite the disaster I had imagined and also not quite the wonderful, stress-free experience I had hoped for. Reality was somewhere in the middle and I was okay with that.

Here is the before. 

My cute little Eeyore.

My happy little Hippy!

The circuit around the neighborhood proved to be a little long for both of them, especially Henry. Their buckets got so heavy, neither of them really wanted to carry them. When Henry decided that he was too tired to walk (with only 5 houses left to go), he started flopping down in the middle of the street.

Dara and her two youngest had retreated for home quite a few houses back which left Jeremy and me going down the street with two kids each. It wasn't so bad except for the competition for first-place-at-the-door and who-gets-to-ring-the-doorbell.

By the time we got back to the house, all the kids were exhausted and dying of thirst.

I will say with no qualms at all that I was completely relieved to get those kids into bed that night.

Estrogen Fest

I know this is a Halloween Post, but that is simply too bad for all you "can't post so late after Halloween" people. I have another one planned after this one too, so prepare for disappointment.

My sister, Dara, and I have been talking about going to Witches' Night Out at Gardner Village since I moved to Utah. For one reason or another it never happened until this year. Because we are the generous sort, we decided to invite our other sisters too. Not everyone was able to come, but we had a decent group heading up that night, some costumed, some not.

After dropping off people and picking up others, we posed for some snaps.

 This are our "normal" faces.

These are our evil faces! Rawr, hiss!

The are our "sexy" faces... yeah...

So, we headed up to Gardner Village, singing at the tops of our lung to 80's songs. It was great!

When we got there, I was astounded at how packed it really was. I imagined that it was a big deal, but the actual experience was like bathing in estrogen. There were some parts of the village that was quite similar to swimming upstream. In other areas it was not a matter of swimming, or moving at all, in fact.

I took the liberty of snapping a few snaps with my new, fancy phone. Some of them came out okay!

Waiting outside the bakery.

Dancing with all the other witches. 

I caught a snap of Debbie, who had stayed out of pictures because she wasn't dressed up. I say she was in the best costume of all. The scariest witch is the one you can't tell if she's one at all! ;)

I'll say that this is the first time I'd gone dancing in years. It used to be a passion of mine, but it fell on the wayside when motherhood demanded my attention. It was good to bust a few moves, though. I also went home feeling crippled. 

Yes, the night was fabulous.

Yes, I went home sore.

Yes, I woke up sore.

Will I go again next year if given half the chance?

Yes.

It should be noted that Dara's hat, her sister-in-law's hat and my hat were all home made. And all out of birthday party cone hats!

Roach-killers

Call them what you will: High-heels, pumps, stilettos or roach-killers.

These are my newest acquisition.

Are they not fantastic?!