Halloween 2008

Oh, what an adventure!!!

Our Halloween celebration started on Thursday evening. Theo, Emmett, and I (Dave was working) were invited to our neighbors' first annual Halloween Extravaganza!!

M, L, and R spook-ified their house and opened their doors for some freaky fantastic Halloween fun. We spent the night with about 15 other little costumed ones and their parents: trick-or-treating (in M, L, and R's backyard), decorating pumpkin-shaped cookies and cupcakes, eating pizza (and too many other good side dishes to mention!), and making paper ghosts & jack-o-lanterns.

Theo and Emmett both had such a blast and enjoyed being surrounded by so many other kids who were just their size! Most of L's friends are fellow teachers, and I was so proud of Theo, as more than one of them commented to me how "patient" and "kind" and "helpful" my oldest son is. More and more over the past couple of weeks, Theo has been asking me (borderline begging...) when he can go to school. He longs for the day when he can hop on the "school bus" with the other neighborhood kids in the morning and go to school, "just like Gabe and Lucy." On Thursday, I got a glimpse of what kind of classmate he will be to kids who, for the most part, he hasn't spent time with before. I think he's going to love school.

We are having perfect Halloween weather. The temps have been in the 60s for the past couple of days. On Thursday night, after helping L with a little damage control in her kitchen (which was splattered with frosting and speckled with sprinkles) Theo, Emmett, and I walked home in the dark. It was still warm enough that we took a spin around the block to check out all of the orange Halloween lights and the carved, glowing pumpkins. Theo was especially fond of the huge spider web of lights hanging off of our backyard neighbors' front porch.

Assuming that both boys were going to sleep well after all of the excitement we'd had, I tucked them both in and crawled into my own bed with a book. Mere minutes later, I heard Theo calling for me, and I got to him just in time to cup my hands under his mouth and catch (a fraction of) his vomit. To spare you the rest of the gruesome details, I'll only say that we ended up going through 4 sets of bedsheets on Thursday night...

And on Friday, the bug caught me.

I spent most of the day yesterday in bed. Both Dave and I had to stay home from work. I was too sick to go in, AND I was too sick to take care of the boys by myself. I wasn't able to take any pictures as Dave headed off into the night with Theo and Emmett, and the neighborhood gang, to do some trick-or-treating. I DO have this picture of my little animals together, from Thursday...

I also MUST share this photo of Erin and Dave from their first Halloween as The Beavers in NYC...

(I must also pay hommage to the original beavers of 2001. Who knew brown turtle necks and buck teeth could look so good?!)