Halloween 2008

I was making every attempt to calm down halloween this year. The past 2 years we have been taking the kids all over town visiting friends and family until all hours. Last year I decided to put a stop to that and just stay at home and simplify the holiday. It almost worked out.....

The first hiccup came on a phone call late in the morning. With my new job I have to wait 90 days until I get medical insurance. The paperwork that I got stated that the 90 days started at the begining of the month. No problem, I thought, start the first of November and I would have insurance starting in February. We still have some coverage provided by my last employer, but after this month we either have to find some other insurance or rob a bank to pay for COBRA. Lucky for me the HR girl at the new job was looking out for me and informed me that the 90 days started on the First day of the month as in Nov 1st rather than just the first couple of days. Since my first official day was going to be Monday Nov 3rd that would mess up my ability for insurance for another month. She told me to come in and fill out paperwork for a couple of hours so they could credit me for the 31st being my first day.Again lucky for me Jen didn't have to go into work until the afternoon so we were able to arrange for grandma C to come over and watch the kids. So rush around and get ready to head up there. I was planning on staying a couple of hours but with all the stuff I was going over and reading and signing I ended up staying until 5:00. So I rush home to find out that my mom has taken over the kid watching duty. She was planning on being there anyway to help me with halloweeners. So I walk in the door and freak out. I am trying to do too many thing at one time for some reason. Feed the kids, answer the door, dress the kids up, put a cd player with scary music in the window, etc, etc etc. So finally I get the kids dressed up and we head out to go trick or treating. There are a ton of kids walking down the road. I know there aren't this many kids in the neighborhood so they must be getting bussed in. The boys did really well even though I had to keep reminding William to say thank you. Andrew was quite the socializer and he was striking up conversations with everyone. I had to carry Christopher since I had a brain fart and left the strollers in the back of the van that Jen took to work. We just went down the street a few houses and back again. The boys actually had more fun sitting on the front porch with grandma and handing out candy. It was a great night to be sitting on the front porch, probably around 61 degrees. The kids who came out early were the younger ones who were really having fun and dressed up really nice, the later it got the older the kids became and the ruder the little bastards became. When you get a trick or treater teenager talking on a cell phone it's time to call it a night. One girl actually came up and asked "how much can I have?" We said "one piece" and she proceeded to grab a whole handful. I stopped her and almost went out the the street to have a word with her mother to teach this little so and so some freaking manners. Mom finally called it a night after a bunch of these little crumb crunchers all came up (not in costume) asking how much they could have.

Again with my brain being mush I forgot to take the van with me to work so I could bring the boys to the mall to see Jen, so after we got back from trick or treating I took off and ran to the mall to grab the van, came home and grabbed the kids, and then back to the mall again. After visiting with Jen for a while we headed for home and I got the kids to bed at a pretty decent time. Halloween was a little better this year, but there was still alot of running around again. I think I will get it better planned out for next year. I worried about running out of candy after seeing the all the kids on the street, but we actually had a little left over.