Halloween and Lunch with Friends

I just got back from having lunch with five of my favorite people! I am so glad to have made such great friends in junior high and high school. We may not get together often, but it's always so fun when we do! It's nice to have friends like that . . . people you know are true friends even though you may not see each other as much as you'd like. It was also nice to have Tyler entertained so I could get some grown-up conversation! Looking forward to next month ladies!

It's also been a busy month for Halloween Party's. At the first of the month, we invited several families over for a costume party. Sunday, we had a family night at my parents home, and then Monday hosted a party for Pete's family at our house. Yesterday was our ward Primary/Neighborhood party that's always a blast. Tomorrow we have school parade and then Friday we get to dress up again to trick-or-treat and attend another neighborhood party. I love this time of year, but let me tell you . . . I'm exhausted!

Maybe part of it is that Pete was out of town last weekend and has been busy this week! Acting as a single mom is not an easy task--hat's off to those women out there who have to do it all the time! Saturday I dragged 3 kids to a 9am football game, then to a birthday party. The kids had wanted to eat lunch at Panda Express, but when we pulled up, they were fighting. I said, "That's it, get back in the car. I can't do this today." Do you ever have days like that? Well, I knew that I was barely staying awake behind the wheel, and fighting kids in Panda Express would take me over the edge. So we spent a nice Saturday afternoon at home. I almost said quiet, but Maddy had 2 friends, Jake had 2 more and had kindly invited Mitch to play football with them. At one point, Tyler even had a friend over. Quiet would be the absolute wrong word to describe the day, but it was great. I tried to make up for our earlier botched lunch by bring Panda Express take-out home for dinner. We watched a scary movie and stayed up a little later than usual. I think I made up for my lack of energy earlier in the day.

I also wanted to describe our family party with the Fisher's. The last couple of Halloween's, we've had a family costume party, complete with bobbing for apples, a pinata, pumpkin carving, and donut eating with hands behind the back and the donuts hanging from a string. This year we added dry ice to the rootbeer and mummy dogs to the menu (hot dogs wrapped in breadsticks with dots of mustard for the eyes)! Some of the best costume's were Jared and Parker dressed as Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World, Ryan and Anne as Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss, and Debbie dressed as her husband Tom, front hair swoop with some graying and all! Did I mention Nate was dressed as a giant chicken. Classic! I might also mention that I'm not a big costume person--I was a half-hearted attempt at Elizabeth Shue as Ali in the Karate Kid. Only, I didn't have time to krimp my hair, and the tip of my blue eye-liner broke, so once again . . . nobody got it! Hey, the food was good and that's more important.

Our neighborhood party was also a lot of fun. We hold it at the church building with a hot dog dinner, then the youth provide booths for the kids to do activities and trick-or-treat. There was face painting, a spook alley, cotton candy machine and lots of other fun games to entertain the kids. We've lived in the area for 3 years now, and it's been a great way to celebrate Halloween with our neighbors.

Well, I'll cross my fingers that we get more trick-or-treaters this year. I may have to revert to full-size candy bars to draw in the crowds! Happy Halloween to all!