Ramblings: Halloween Part 1

For the past few years at Jeremy's firm, they've had little Halloween trick-or-treating shindigs for the kids. The kids get all dressed up, whine about how long it takes to drive downtown, then manipulate all the office staff with their cuteness to get buckets of candy and other treats. If anything, it's good begging practice for the real deal and a chance for me to iron out any costume kinks before the big night.

As soon as the kids got off the bus, I yanked 'em inside and started getting them dressed so we could rush downtown and destroy an entire floor of a high rise. Maddie was less than enthusiastic about her costume--and I have about 20 rejected pictures of her pouting in it as proof.

Apparently there's something hardwired in every five year old girl's brain that attracts them to glitter, spandex, eye makeup, fluffy skirts and/or wings and without some combo of most of these things, NOBODY WILL GIVE THEM ANY CANDY! Or something like that--she was screaming kind of loud and it was hard to understand what she was saying. So of course she wanted to be something fabulously sparkly and pink, but I told her that since I let her do that last year, MOM gets to choose this year. (Or something like that--I was screaming kind of loud and it was hard to understand what I was saying.) Plus, I encourage cross-dressing and pipe smoking at a young age so it'll really stick.

Her costume turned out hilarious though, and everyone loved it. Nothing like a little blond hair, blue eyed Sherlock with a man-stache to get a good laugh. Once she realized I wasn't lying that people would think it was funny, she was ok with it. But she was sure to tell me this morning that she most definitely would NOT be wearing that tonight.
I like how big Maddie's eyeball is through her magnifying glass in this group shot taken in the parking garage before heading upstairs. They actually posed for TWO pictures--if only you could feel the power candy has as a form of bribery for these kids.

Alex was supposed to be a Roman soldier, but when he finally tried on the helmet last weekend, we realized it was too small. Without it, he just sort of looked like a Village People reject in his fake muscles and gold armor. We dug out his Italian chef costume from about four years ago and he revived his "Mama, mia. Treak or treata" once more. I don't have too many pictures of him from the party because once the sugar hit his system, he and his friend Andrew were just blurry spots in our peripheral vision every now and then.

It took alot of highly intelligent and educated people an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that the box and the UPS man costumes went together. I didn't just cheap out on Aidan's costume. (Obviously they are unaware of the oath that mothers of twins are forced to take at the hospital requiring you to dress them in theme costumes for as long as you are physically able to force them to do so. Or you get kicked out of the Halloween Twin Club.) The boys argued (wrestled, cried, screamed, smacked each other around) about which one got to wear the box costume--I did not expect this because I thought they'd both want the hat. But I ended up letting Aidan because I thought he'd tolerate walking in it the longest. Plus I found a "Top Heavy" label to print, and who's that more fitting for than our Big Head? I also enjoyed the "Fragile--Handle with Care--High Claim Value!" label.

The long elevator ride up was the spookiest part of the party for these two--they did not like that lurching sensation at the end. They don't get out much, people.










I hope that the firm appreciated all the stickiness and entire boxes of Nerds that we left in and all over the leather conference room chairs. We tried our best to undo our damage, but there's only so much a package of baby wipes can do on Sprite, sticky body parts, and candy drool. Aidan hoarded pencils like they were going out of style. Note--giant box does not allow for sitting.









Maddie took the candy collecting rather seriously. She even commented on how messy Daddy's office was..."Why are there boxes everywhere? What a mess!" No kiddin--that didn't take Sherlock to figure out.

Happy Halloween! We have more parties and the inevitable bucketloads of additional candy tonight. Good thing their Uncle Brent's a dentist--we may be shipping our kids up north for all their cavity-filling needs in a few weeks.