Halloween 2010

(note: here in Utah, when Halloween falls on a Sunday, trick or treating happens on Sat)

This year for Halloween,
Abigail came up with her own costume for the Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland,
Elisabeth was a cat,
Samuel was C3PO for the 3rd yr in a row for his school party and then decided to be Clifford the Big Red Dog for trick or treating,
and Isaac was Harry Potter (which we rented from a neighbor at 8:30 the night before his class party after he dug through our costume box and couldn't come up with anything better than a creative combination of a feather boa and a clown wig. umm. I told him that was not just not working.)

But it would seem our Halloween was cursed.

First, the store was all out of Pumpkins on Fri night when Zac went grocery shopping. So no Jack o' Lanterns this year. (We've made the mistake of buying our pumpkins early and having them smashed by vandalizing teenagers before we could even carve them. And we've also made the mistake of carving them too early and having them moldy and shriveling by Halloween. Someday we'll figure out the best timing.)

And I started feeling sick Fri night with a sore throat and general yuckiness. So Sat I stayed in bed and slept pretty much all day while Zac cleaned the whole house and took care of the crazy kids.

And then, in the afternoon we came to the realization that our fridge wasn't working. Everything in the freezer was thawed, so it appeared that it had been non-functional for quite awhile. My mom had decided to come down and join us in our Halloween "fun." But instead, she was greeted by me walking around like a zombie still in my pajamas, Zac freaking out by trying to salvage as much of our food as possible and trying to decide what to do with the fridge, and the kids wound up and overexcited by the anticipation of sugar-overdosing.

So. We skipped our church chili-cookoff/fall festival and spent the time carting some food over to our neighbor's freezer, calling around to find an emergency appliance repair man, buying ice and filling up a cooler with other food, evaluating and throwing out the food that was beyond saving (UGH), and also taking care of some Sat tasks that hadn't gotten done because I hadn't gotten out of bed to make sure they got done. (Thanks, mom for helping us out with all of that.)

It was also raining.

So anyway - Zac took the kids out trick or treating in the rain. My mom and I stayed home watching a movie, leaving the bowl of candy out on the doorstep because I didn't feel like greeting trick or treaters, and waiting for the fridge guy.

And then, we let the kids eat some candy. Isaac almost caught the kitchen on fire when he decided to turn on the kettle for hot chocolate without noticing all the junk I had left on the stovetop (from cleaning off the top of the fridge so we could pull it out). He melted a couple dry-erase markers and filled up the house with the stench of melting plastic.

So, no hot chocolate. Kids were promptly put to bed. We got all the food put back into our fridge (after our $150 emergency repair).

And that was the end of our Halloween. Finally. phew! ;)

Hopefully we'll have better luck next year . . .