Costumes and Candy Holiday

Halloween, my least favourite holiday of the year. Even as a child I don't remember loving it (although Mom might have different thoughts). I did love the candy aspect but don't remember loving the dressing up part. Now the thought of gathering and coordinating costumes for 3 (and next year 4) children makes me want to just go out and buy a couple boxes of candy and call it even. 

The only thing I do love about Halloween is that it's a quiet night in for me. My plan was to put Lucienne to bed a bit early, put in a chick flick and put my feet up while Rene and the girls collected candy I would eat for the next couple of weeks. We don't get too many kids knocking at our door so it really is a relaxing evening.

However, I married my perfect match and Rene is officially in charge of Halloween in our home. He LOVES it. This year I consented with the girls to purchase costumes for them...as long as they stuck to the 70% off rack in Zellers. I must say, we had a couple cute pirates (Evelyn and Audree) and a very realistic looking Merida from the movie Brave (Amelia). I told them that if I bought them something they were in no way going to change their minds. There would be no last minutes indecision.

It turns out Evelyn is a lot like me. She was a pirate for a party the weekend before, a gorilla for school and 5 minutes before we were set to go out the door proclaimed that she didn't know what she wanted to be so was going to stay home. Her gorilla suit was wet from it raining all day and she couldn't find the dagger she put in her boot for her pirate costume and said no one would know what she was without it (no comment). I really wanted to tell her fine, just stay home but I knew she wouldn't be happy so we quickly got some pjs that would fit over her winter coat and put some rosy cheeks on her, a cop out baby.

But, I should probably back up in the week. Sunday night, all three girls got sick within hours of each other. I spent the night up between the three of them and  cleaned two bathrooms from missed spewage. To Rene's credit he did get up around 4am during one of Amelias puking episodes and was ready for battle only to find a very tired me downstairs cleaning the floor of the bathroom for a second time.

Luckily, it was an 8 hour bug and they were all fine by the following afternoon. Not so lucky, I got it last night and Rene got it this afternoon. Just in time for Halloween. Since I could technically walk without running to the bathroom my quiet night in became a cold, wet night out.

It was a little more fun than I thought it would be. At one point we found the cutest little kitten outside a home and I made an offhand comment that perhaps we could have the kitten instead of candy. Evelyn's eyes went huge and with a huge smile said "Really??!!" Whoops. No, not really. But I would have.

But, now it's over for another year and I can deal with sugar high children for the next couple of weeks. I let them gorge on candy after school so that they'll get through the loot in about 2 weeks. I heard it's better for their teeth that way anyway and I don't have to deal with the sugar whines for months on end. Let the games begin.