Halloween 2009

Phil was out of town for a conference so I had all three kiddos by myself. I figured it would be a good weekend for it, though, with Halloween festivities keeping us all quite busy. Here was our schedule:

Friday:
9am Claire's field trip to the fire dept for school
4:30pm Trick-or-treat at Phil's squadron

Saturday:
Take photos at the local pumpkin patch place
5pm Halloween pre-party at the neighbors' house
6-8pm Trick-or-treat on base/hand out candy

Sunday:
9am Mass
5pmish Phil returns

Not bad, right? Well...

Friday
Fire house: I had all three of the kids with me for Claire's field trip because they didn't get a bus for the field trip; they needed parent drivers. I successfully got all three of my children into the fire house, kept them from falling off the steel staircase, kept them from falling down the pole, and even took some photos. I'm feeling awesome.



Squadron trick-or-treat: Got the girls dressed and out the door in their costumes. The boy was in a presentable outfit and riding in a front pack for which I made a cute Halloween cover. We successfully trick-or-treated and got the girls fed without ruining their costumes for the festivities tomorrow. Left before they could get dirty on the playground and/or the boy could have a meltdown. I definitely missed the help of having a husband around and was feeling a bit frazzled. But all three kids were accounted for and the older two were candied up so I still chalked it up as a successful excursion.


Saturday
(Answered questions of ,"Is it time to trick-or-treat yet?" all day long without completely losing it.)
Pumpkin Patch: Got all three children into cute Halloween-festive clothes. Made sure they were fed and happy. Arrived to pumpkin patch to find out that you can't take photos on Saturdays because a professional photographer is there. Turned around and left because I wanted to take the darned photos myself.



Neighbors house: Got children fed and supervised their play with lots of other children. Everything went quite well except for one minor stranger-anxiety incident when I tried to hand off the boy so I could eat. Came home and got the girls dressed for trick-or-treat. Claire changed her costume at the last minute from "Ariel" to "angel" but we got that figured out. Tried to take their picture in front of the house in their costumes and the camera wouldn't work. Had a little panic attack. Borrowed a friend's camera for the Halloween picture and quickly grabbed the movie camera so we would have some sort of documentation of the event for Daddy.



Trick-or-treat: Set out our bowl of candy with a threatening note attached to ONLY TAKE TWO PIECES and hoped for the best. Took the kids to two houses and then dashed back to retrieve Claire's digital camera. Fielded questions from Claire about why I was using her camera. With the camera situation resolved, we got as far away from our house as is physically possible and Claire announced that she's cold. Hurried back (while trick-or-treating) and grabbed coats. Sent the girls to finish trick-or-treating with a neighbor because Colin was announcing to the world that he was DONE. I got the girls into bed after a few pieces of candy for each of them. Two hours late, but it's a holiday, right? Was feeling a bit tired of doing everything by myself.

Sunday

Woke up and HURRIED to get everyone somewhat presentable and out the door for Mass, bribing with candy. Didn't need to and arrived an hour early. Spent the next hour back at home getting myself MORE presentable and lamenting the fact that Colin was now going to be screwed up on his nap.

Mass: Colin was crazy and a complete stranger offered to watch the girls for me while I took Colin into the back of the church. And I took him up on it (he was a dad and there's glass so I could still see them...). Wondered how pathetic I must look for complete strangers to offer help. Began to plan a Mom Conference (Momference?) in my mind for next weekend. Lots of spa activities involved. Then remembered that I'm still breastfeeding and can't go anywhere. Came back to reality and rescued Mr. Stranger from my children.

Received two phone calls from friends to meet up and have the kids play in the afternoon. Wahoo! Walked to the park with the girls to meet them all and saw a C-17 come in for a landing. They're home early. House is a mess and dinner isn't even started so Phil won't have any idea how completely together I had everything. Oh well. Let the kiddos play and borrowed a friend's phone to tell Phil where we are because I forgot mine. (Maybe I don't have it so "together" after all). Came home to Phil cooking dinner. Yayyyyy!