Halloween at this age is SO much fun. E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. is exciting- thinking about costumes, picking a costume, wearing costumes out and about, and (of course) the prospect of candy, seeing Halloween decorations, seeing scary decorations.... the fun is seemingly endless. One difference between this year and previous years is that in addition to the fun of dressing up, there is a new found "fun" of being scarred. They love being surprised and the thrill of being just a little scared has encouraged the boys to play endless games of hide and seek. They love finding a good spot and when the time is right, jumping out to give me (or Hank) a good scare. I can barely stay in the house when they play with game with Chris because the screaming and laughing is deafening. Chris likes to find really good hiding spots but Hank likes to give his location away and Hank can't stand when Chris jumps out and scares the boys so as soon as Chris jumps out of hiding, Hank pounces on Chris. The whole scene is chaotic and hilarious. On one occasion Brody got me particularly good. Brody was hiding in an alcove close to my bathroom. I walked by and he jumped out screaming "rarrrrr". I screamed while I continued to walk into the bathroom. Unbeknownst to me, Brady was in the bathroom and he started to scream in response to my scream-walking. The three of were rolling in laughter because we had created a scream chain. In addition to accepting that scary is sometime fun, Brody and Brady also are loving the idea that magic exists and that magic can be used to turn someone or something into something else. Brady is constantly trying out different spells and is always lamenting that his magic wand is not real enough. All of these factors add up to make the holiday (which used to be one that I had no love for) into something that is incredibly fun.
We started off our celebration by buying huge pumpkins and decorating the yard. The boys love looking at Halloween decorations so they were spellbound by the idea that they could pick out some decorations for our personal yard. Chris took them out shopping and they came home with some hilarious props. The kids got a kick out of placing them in the yard. On another weekend we carved pumpkins. This is the perfect age for them to appreciate the fun of chasing each other around with pumpkin guts! Sadly our pumpkins disintegrated by the time Halloween rolled around. Ahh, California life....
We talked about Halloween costumes endlessly and when I though we were in the sweet spot of them being excited enough about an idea and it being close enough to the actual holiday- we pulled the trigger and purchases their costumes. Brady wanted to be a pirate and Brody wanted to be a Ninja Turtle. They wore their costumes around the house for days. I love how much imagination play they get out of them. In addition to the purchased costumes, Brady made me Halloween earrings and a necklace out of some card-stock pumpkins I had around the house. I thought this was incredibly thoughtful and in typical mom fashion I stored them away deeeeeeeeep in my closet for safe keeping. To my surprise, he remembered that he had made them and reminded me that I needed to wear my Halloween jewelry out and about on Halloween night! Anything for you, thoughtful boy!
Their preschool puts on a Enchanted House with is essentially a walking tour of different book scenes with the teachers as actors throughout. It is so fun and something the boys look forward to. We dressed up for the tour and then hit one of the local town's trick or treating events. On Halloween morning I made monster toast and the boys wore pajamas to school. Then that evening we were so lucky to have Aunt Kathy and Uncle Sam come over IN COSTUME and trick or treat with us. We walked around our local streets and it was nearly impossible to keep up with the kids. They were sprinting from house to house and would have zig zagged the whole time if we did not tell them to stick to one side of the street. It was so dark out I was sure they were going to bite it by going at warp speed from house to house but they did just fine. It was so fun. They ended the night sharing candy with us and having stories read to them (including Hank) by Kathy and Sam. What a great ending to a fantastic month of fun!
