The Halloween Hangover!

Wow, Halloween is becoming one of the favorite holidays here in our household. We have so much fun seeing the kids get dressed up and they LOVE all the excitement. Our neighborhood has a parade and the fire truck comes to lead us off. The boys can’t get enough of fire trucks so you can imagine that this is a HUGE hit. They run along for a while to collect some goodies until they need to sit down and eat their stash. The best part is how goofy they are sometimes. Maddox runs up to go “trick or treat” and he hauls into everyone’s house to see what’s inside. Surely, they have more candy! Nice! Then he empties his candy into the bowl outside a house (getting too heavy?) but then quickly realizes he has to fill up since he is empty. The person behind us doesn’t see this – all they see is him trying to grab all his candy that he dumped seconds ago….when the sign says “take one PLEASE!” Austin is in HEAVEN. He is unfortunately a choco-holic. He rarely gets it but watch out when he does. I did hide the candy this morning and amazingly neither asked for it. Out of sight out of mind. We all had a great time nonetheless and are already looking forward to next year. One of the nicest moments is to see our neighbors whose kids are grown having so much fun handing out candy. That’s why it’s so worth it, even though the meltdowns the next day are troublesome. It won’t be long before we have empty houses as well and will long for these days again.

So we thought it would be fun for you to hear from all of the Smarties to get a taste of their Halloween experiences. Here’s Ashley!

Ashley:
This was our first real family Halloween with child participation. Last year the twins were still infants and we didn’t do much out of the norm. This year was super fun…they actually wore costumes, we attended a few parties prior to Halloween, we took them in their wagon to our neighborhood pizza party Friday night and then hit a handful of houses on the way home for trick-or-treating. Fallon & Cannon are still too young for the candy deal so dad scored big by reaping the rewards of their trick-or-treat adventures (which wasn’t much since we only visited a few homes, and mom’s new dietary lifestyle doesn’t include candy… plus I don’t have much of a sweet tooth anyway). They got to stay up later than normal (we only had a couple meltdowns due to being overtired & likely a bit over-stimulated) but LOVED running around our driveway & helping hand out candy to the other adorable trick-or-treaters. So, a F-U-N experience for us!!! I’m betting once the candy factor comes into play it will be another story, but 2008 was great!

Courtenay:
My family loves, LOVES Halloween. My kids look forward to dressing up, trick or treating and the neighborhood parade/party and I look forward to the pumpkin carving. My daughter has a thing for wanting to dress up like something sweet and then making it “bad”. Good witch, scary makeup – Arial, bad Arial with scary makeup and this year a Vampire who is good but has scary makeup. Get the theme. She also loves false eyelashes, the bigger and tackier the better. She is starting to become pretty well known in the ‘hood for the eyelashes. Our little one, is still just happy to be in a costume and pulled in the wagon and our oldest just loves when his candy bag is as full as it can get. Secretly, when he goes to bed, I pick out my favorites to create my own stash. I carve the pumpkins, one for each child and they get to chose what they want carved into it. I have a stencil book, to make it easier and my secret carving tools. When it gets dark, I light the candles and go admire my handiwork. Lots of pictures get taken with our pumpkins and for a very non creative person, this is a great ego boost. So there you have it, the Wardell family Halloween. Got to go, hubby is raiding the candy!

Jenny:
We love preparing for Halloween, picking out our costumes and pumpkins. But when October 31 comes around, I get a little apprehensive. I have to mentally prepare myself for the many meltdowns that come with this exciting holiday. And when it is all over and the kids finally go to sleep, I have to prepare for the Halloween hangover. This is the morning after, where the sugar residue still lingers in Zoe, and she can’t handle the simplest tasks of eating breakfast or getting dressed without breaking out the tears. So then I have to put away the candy for the day and be patient, otherwise she would spend the entire day in timeout. But it’s not her fault, it is a lot for any kid to handle. All this aside, I do have to admit that it is all worth it. I love seeing her jump up and down in excitement when she is all dressed up and running from house to house trick or treating. I guess like everything, you have to take the good with the bad.

Jen P:
Well, my Halloweens are pure chaos. Our hood festivities start with a Halloween pizza gathering in the cul-de-sac and then all of the trick-or-treaters leave at the exact same time to begin their quest for candy. With a 7-year-old, 5-year-old and 2 1/2-year-old twins, this is stressful at best for our fam. Within 5 minutes, we lost our oldest as she got caught up in the first wave of trick-or-treaters and all of her closest buds. This happens to us every year and it’s so annoying. Last year was particularly funny because we were The Cat in the Hat theme with dreams of the whole family trick-or-treating together. So our oldest was the Cat in the Hat, middle child was Sally and the twins were Thing 1 & Thing 2. Well the twins tuckered out early and the oldest took off with her friends. So middle child was stuck without her entourage ringing the doorbell as Sally! People never quite got her Halloween costume that year. This year, the Halloween hangover began just before bedtime Friday night with Owen (a twin) standing in the middle of our kitchen screaming at the top of his lungs for no apparent reason that I can think of except maybe that meant “I’m SOOOOO DONE!!” On Saturday morning, my twins started chanting “C-A-N-D-Y, C-A-N-D-Y, C-A-N-D-Y” at dawn and were in time-out 7 times in the first hour of wakefulness. It was a lovely day! Not to mention, I’m on the same dietary restrictions as Ashley but I was not afraid to steal all of the Snickers out of each child’s basket! Can’t wait for next year:-)

Please share your Halloween ha-has!