Happy Halloween!

Last year, since the babies were still tiny, we opted not to take them trick-or-treating. Instead, they had Halloween hats that they wore all season to celebrate baby style.

This year, I wasn't really planning on taking them, either. But, as it turns out, it was a matter of Bregon getting to trick-or-treat, so I gave in and decided to go ahead and try it.

In anticipation of Halloween, I began planning a few days ahead. I would take the babies Easter baskets and zip-tie them to the side of the stroller so that they didn't feel left out.

I made two jugs of juice (half juice/half water) and made sure that I had extra bags of Goldfish crackers and Teddy Grahams ready to go.

We made a test run on Monday by taking the babies along for the ride so we could check out the Pumpkin Shine that is only a few blocks away from our house.

Everyone did okay until Vivienne managed to get her lady-baby foot caught under her stroller seat when I hit one of those cracks in the pavement at the park.

When we got home, I realized that she was also stinky which had given her another reason to practice her banshee wail.

They lasted until about 7:15 Monday night. Tuesday, I let them go to bed at the usual hour (I know I am supposed to be keeping them up an hour later, but they were just so incredibly cranky I couldn't help myself!)

Last night, Bregon and I gathered the babies Halloween clothing and put it on the buffet in the dining room in anticipation of getting ready for the big day.

We spent the rest of the evening planning, and carving our pumpkins. Bregon ended up giving his pumpkin an evil clown face to match this year's costume.

I decided just to see what happened and ended up with a rather nice looking overjoyed and smiling pumpkin.

It was so nice and peaceful sitting on our new front porch and hollowing out our pumpkins and planning and carving together.

My little kitty even came up and crawled into my lap at one point as if to tell me, "Happy Halloween!"

Wednesday morning, I hit the ground running, because I had quite forgotten to buy any Halloween candy in anticipation of trick-or-treaters. Oops!

I frantically went through my pantry trying to find something suitable. Usually, I have plenty of candy amassed in there because of Bregon and I didn't have the car to be able to run go pick some up!

Being that we had recently moved, though, meant that I had ended up weeding through everything and I had actually gotten rid of the excess. Eek!

I was able to locate about a butter carton full of flavored bubble gum, three quarters of a case of long-forgotten ding-dongs, some mini Halloween bags of popcorn and a few rice crispy treats that were some flavor Bregon didn't seem to like. I figured that should about do it!

I stuck my butter carton by the front door so that I wouldn't forget to put it out, along with a bag of tea-lights, a lighter, and some coasters for the pumpkins.

About noon, I decided that I should probably make use of my new bay window and decided to dig out my Halloween decorations.

Normally, I wouldn't have been able to use them for fear of having them stolen off of the porch by pranksters.

But, I have this lovely bay window that is screaming for some decorations, so I took down the unused curtain rod, and started hanging things from it.

I ended up with a flying skeleton critter on one end, my famine skeleton guy in the center, and baby bat on the other end.

I hung the head collection from the window latches, with my new vampire one in the center, the bride to his left and the clown to his right.

My flutter creatures gave me a bit of a problem as I was out of ways to hang them. It finally dawned on me that I could just use the suction cups from the failed attempt at hanging the shower caddy. It worked like a charm!

I was so happy, I changed my Myspace mood to read, "The heads were all hung from the window with care, in hopes that trick-or-treaters, soon would be scared" so that all of my friends would know about my antics.

The next thing I knew, it was time to try and get the babies dressed for the evening in their little Halloween outfits so that I could get them ready for dinner.

Luckily for me, Husband walked in about that time from collecting Bregon from the Halloween dance at school and they were able to help me catch the babies!

While the babies had dinner, Bregon moved all of my planters off of the front porch (to avoid pranksters) and helped me get the final few items ready to go.

I was even able to light the tea candles and get the coaster with the candles into the pumpkin without anything blowing out or even burning me!

Together, we lashed the Easter baskets to the side of the stroller (2 triceratops ones and a
Dora head) and added a glam-rock gargoyle doll to the other side for fun.

We loaded the triplets into the stroller as our friends drove up to join us for the evening.

Somehow, we managed to walk both sides of about 5 blocks, and doubled back to the far end of Ockley to make a loop back past the church.

To keep the babies from getting too tired, I fed them M&M's that they had trick-or-treated from my neighbor.

I know that I probably sound like a horrible Mum, but the sugar really seemed to keep them awake and from getting cranky somehow!

We had walked so far, that the kids were begging us to go home. I suppose over all, we did really well.

Both of the big-kids had bags full of candy, and the babies each had their little baskets with a few things in them as well.

Vivienne started to cry about a half a block from home. Then wind blew my direction and I quickly realized why.

That was the only melt-down of the evening and I thought it was justified. After all, it was 8 o'clock by this time. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself...And I do!

We had a wonderful time, and our pumpkins even survived the night! For once, there was even still some candy in the butter carton on the front porch.

I was in shock that not only was it still there, it had something in it! I had grown accustomed to coming home to find the candy & the container totally gone and usually the pumpkins smashed.

What a nice surprise! Then, to top it all off, my babies actually went to sleep gracefully. We said good-night and Happy Halloween to our friends as they drove away.

Then, we had a candy crisis. Bregon had been bombarded with trick-or-treaters as he came inside from unloading our stroller.

We were out of candy and stuff with folks still coming up the drive!

I frantically ran back into the pantry to see what I could come up with. I managed to find a few more bags of popcorn, some snack-sized bags of Sun-chips and Doritos, and some honey buns.

I even forked over the rest of the bubble-gum. Bregon wouldn't let me give them the brown jellybeans that are the ammunition for his wind-up bunny and moose, though...I tried!

Luckily, that would do it for us. We were able to turn the porch light off and snuff out the candles in the pumpkins without getting caught by anymore trick-or-treaters!

So, as I put away my heads, my bats, and critters of flight, a Happy Halloween to all & to all a good night!