Monday, November 3, 2014

Trick or Treat

For Halloween, I headed south to the Larsen home.  I stayed at home to pass out candy while Ian and the kids went out to collect more.

Henry and Clara as Spider-Man and Queen Elsa, respectively.

Henry was especially excited to go out trick-or-treating, though Clara was enthusiastic, too.

Their neighborhood only allowed trick-or-treating for a couple of hours, so I expected a steady stream of kiddies from 6 o'clock on, but we only had a handful of visitors for the whole first hour.  That said, once we got to 7 o'clock, things really picked up.

I was surprised at how old a lot of the groups were.  I think there were about three or four groups that were made up of thirteen to fourteen year old girls, which is really pushing it for free candy collecting.

There weren't that many repeats as far as costumes go.  I saw one other Elsa (Clara being the first), but that's it.  I did see a lot of superheroes - though whether that was because I pay attention to that sort of thing or because they were the most prevalent, I can't say.  I will say that the older kids seemed to be more creative with their costumes, which I appreciate.  One girl had her face intricately painted in Día de los Muertos style.  The creepiest costumes, from my perspective, was a teen couple (probably about fifteen or sixteen) dressed as Little Red Ridding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf - it's creepy because it's a couple's costume and they're too young for that nonsense.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention that a lot of visitors complimented me on the pumpkins out front:

 
Batman and his nemesis, Queen Elsa.

Ian really knocked it out of the park on these pumpkins.  While it's been years since I last attempted to carve a pumpkin, I do remember that they aren't the easiest medium to work in, so his accomplishments are even more impressive.

The kids each had a single piece of candy and then got ready for bed.  Ian and I stayed up and hung out.  I wasn't planning on staying over, but after I let my eyes rest (my contacts were bothering me), Ian woke me up at around 2 in the morning and told me to crash in the guest room.  I was happy to oblige.

In the morning, Henry came into my room to wake me up.  He was excited that I stayed over and wanted to hang out.  I was not ready to get out of bed, so I had him climb in next to me.  A little bit later, Clara came and joined us.  I had the kids take turns playing games on my tablet while I tried to go back to sleep, but that was futile since all children everywhere are incapable for staying quiet for long.  Eventually one of the cats hoped in bed, so I gave up and decided it was time for breakfast.

I led the kids into the dinning room and served up a fancy breakfast of cold cereal.  There were requests for waffles, but I thought that making a mess in someone else's kitchen uninvited was a bad idea, even if I did clean up afterwards.  I played It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown for the kids while I got my own food ready.  After everyone was finished eating and the video ended, I told the kids to go get dressed for the day while I cleaned up from breakfast.

It was around this time that Ian wandered out of his room.  I told him that I had fed the kids and the animals (two cats and a dog) and that the kids were getting dressed.  He was impressed that everything had already been taken care of.  I told him that I figured that he probably didn't get too many opportunities to sleep in, so I wanted to give him the chance this once.  He agreed that he rarely gets to sleep in and expressed his gratitude that I allowed him to once again by taking care of the kids.  It wasn't too much later that I said my good-byes and headed home.

All around, it was a fun Halloween and I'm happy that I helped out in more ways than one.

1 comment:

Paige said...

Yay for feeling and being helpful.