Whoever decides the school calendar should NEVER EVER EVER EVER put Book Fair, Red Ribbon Week, 50's Day/party, Fall Festival/Halloween/Trunk-or-Treat parties, Fundraisers, Field Trips, Behavior Rewards parties, all on top of non-school related activities including more Halloween parties, birthday parties, church Fall Festivals, normal extra-curricular activities (ballet, soccer, etc), not to mention its "sick" month where allergies and viruses are rampant.
BECAUSE lets face it: most parents do not help in the public schools. For those of us who DO want to help... we can not do it all. We can't be in multiple places at the same time. We all generally have more than 1 kid. SO in the future we will be learning to Just.Say.No. Which we all hate. Which will mean less help and therefore less fun for the kids. They don't like hearing that word and we don't like saying it. (I'm speaking for several moms here.) Attempt to space all this out over the month, not squeeze it all into ONE WEEK!
ok. rant over. mainly because its November now. and I can breathe again.
Halloween just isn't what it used to be. Most people don't go trick-or-treating because no one trusts anyone. Trunk-or-treating is nice when the churches don't cancel it because of rain every year. But lets face it, trunk-or-treat doesn't have the same appeal as knocking on a stranger's door begging for candy. In the 8 years that we've been here, our church has canceled their Fall Festival at least 3 times that I can remember. Nowadays, everyone has Fall Festivals anyway - what happened to haunted houses and creepy witches? Don't get me wrong, I'm not Satanic or into demon worship or anything like that. Its.just.fun.to.dress.up.and.get.scared. Last year, I was pregnant with Mason and beyond physically and emotionally exhausted. So I opted out of throwing our annual Halloween party and taking a break. I never heard the end of it. I promised the kids I would do it this year and that I would persuade the adults to get dressed up too. I do it for the kids. I do it because times aren't the same as they were when I was growing up. If I don't throw a Halloween party, who will?? I got smart this year though. My only rule was if you come, you must bring food. I took care of the "big" items and drinks. Seeing as most of my friends have a minimum of 3 kids, I just can't do all the decorating PLUS ALL the food it takes to feed that many people. It did start raining this year about half way through, but I think they all had a good time anyway. I do an outdoor movie, this year we rented a jumper, food, candy, and a hayride. The kids had a blast I think. They were surrounded by their own friends and family, not a bunch of strangers at foreign-church's trunk-or-treat (which I get is a ministry opportunity). We weren't knocking on stranger's doors. Hopefully it took all the worries out of the parents as well as the kids and everyone had a good time. Looking forward to next year!!! I'm thinking Elvis might be making an appearance (maybe).
If your picture didn't show up on Fb, its because my sister said she felt weird taking someone's picture if she didn't know them. So please don't be offended. She tried to take everyone's picture for me and I must say I need to hire her from now to be the official every-party photographer!
I've had several friends come back and tell me that our Halloween party WAS their child's Halloween this year. And that their kids' were still talking about how much fun they had. Our church canceled their event for Halloween night again, plus it was raining cats and dogs so no one went trick-or-treating. Every penny I spent and time spent on decorating and setting up... was worth it to hear that.
Having said all that, I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking. Its been crazy busy and I'm very much looking forward to school being out for the upcoming holidays.
P.S. Oh! Why was I dressed up as a cop? My friend Amy and I have an ongoing inside joke about us being "Mom of the year" (which we totally aren't) and also one of us being "Good cop vs. Bad cop". I usually refer to Amy being the Good cop because she is the "nicer mom" of the two of us! I'm mean mommy and I joke that I'm the "bad cop." I really didn't want the kids coming in the house during the party unless they had to go to the bathroom... I joked that I would "arrest anyone trespassing on private property." Hence...the cop costume.
