The Halloween Gauntlet

5 Halloween parties in less than 36 hours = lot's of fun... and one exhausted Erin. Our Friday started early getting Kohen and Kenna off to school. While Nathan took them I frantically got ready (which means my teeth were brushed and I got concealer under my eyes) fed the baby and got Princess Aly ready for her Halloween party at school. As soon as Nathan got back we were off.
Aly's preschool put on quite the bash with projects, carnival games, a LAME-O "clown", trick-or-treating and prizes. Aly won for best costume in her class, I didn't even know there was a competition...

The picture is Aly with her little friend Lizzy. The girls are quite a bit alike, their birthdays are just a couple of days apart. When they are playing together I regularly can't tell whose voice is whose which is saying something since a Mom knows the sound of her child's voice...usually.
Next we race over to TAS and into Kohen's Halloween festivities. Again lot's of projects and games. I got Kohen's costume on clearance last year. He doesn't know what a Power Ranger is so he was a self proclaimed "Super Hero" and went around kicking the air, tumbling on the floor and whacking unsuspecting passerby's all day. Pretty much his best day ever.
It was almost time to go help Kennedy get her costume on when I realized... I forgot her costume at home in our haste to leave. Crud. I grab the car keys and Aly and leave the babe with Nathan and Kohen and race out to the car and speed home. It wasn't until I pulled up to our house that I realized I had neglected to bring the keys to open the gate to our home. There is no penetrating the fortress without the keys (#@!!*%). I raced back to the school, parked illegally, threw Aly on my hip and ran clear back inside. Got the keys (#@!!*%) and headed home a second time.

Oh yeah, and somewhere in there I take Aly to the bathroom and her shoe ended up in the toilet. Yeah, we both went to flush with our foot and I knocked her little heel off and right into the pot. Perfect. Anyway, I made it to Kennedy's class with a few minutes to spare. She was excited we were there so she could show us her face painting. After her parade we all raced (I keep using the same verb not to annoy but because it's literally what we did all day) home to get ready for a party for adults at our house.
The next several hours were spent neglecting our sugar-high children as we tried to finish the house, food and costumes (I was Facebook and Nathan was one of Taiwans dummy flaggers, one of my favorite things here). I was co-hosting with two other gals and the party turned out awesome. I haven't laughed so hard in a while which was a nice change.
Check out Kenna's hair for the Sat. Ward party. I don't think anyone noticed cuz she wore that tiara but I was really proud of it at any rate.
A picture of my trio of trouble on Saturday. As you can see Aly switched costumes to be a Witch this party. The girl likes to keep it fresh.
Here's a picture of the fam before the kids scattered like cockroaches when the lights turn on. There were so many games to play and treats to try, it was quite the production. You can't really tell in this picture but Ander was Nathan and I's dwarf. He switched all night from being 'Sleepy', to 'Grumpy', to 'Hungry' (the elusive 8th dwarf) and then 'Happy' again. When Kennedy found out I was going to be Snow White the first thing she asked me: "Are you going to wear a wig?" Hmph. The hair's the one thing I got!!

Anyway, there was even a trunk-or-treat at the end and after that we went up the mountain to a neighborhood that has quite a few ex-pats and where some real trick-or-treating goes on. It's only a street or two but it was just enough to let the kids feel like they got an authentic Halloween experience.

Think how exhausted you are from just reading this post... it was insane but really fun.