Something Fantastic.

I will confess, I've never really liked Halloween. I really don't know why since I do like little kids in costumes and I definitely like candy...

Above is Ruby at her Halloween carnival. She even has the uncombed hair of a little witch.

And Jake carved the pumpkins to the girls' specifications. He did a fantastic job as they hounded him and climbed on his shoulders and jumped about as he cut.

I just really really love my girls. Like, head exploding love. They're different and amazing and creative and funny. And even when we're at the park and someone's pooing in their underwear and another is crying the entire time and the other needs to be nursed and the other's ignoring me when it's time to go...

Even then and especially then.

I look at my life and am astounded. That I had a great childhood and I don't need therapy or drugs or an outlet for pain. That I'm a mother, a strong one, with four girls.

I hope we take the world in the palm of our hands and do something fantastic.

Cackle, Cackle, Cackle, Quack.

Someday my prince will come...

Soooo Squidgy.

Oh, not so happy I see? Conch shells too tight? You don't like the pink mermaid hood pinching all around your face? I understand, I do. But in the interest of all things delectable, you are wearing this whether you like it or not.

Affectionately,
Mom

I Overdid It. Consider Yourself Warned.

Why?

Because Halloween is coming.
Because my mom let me wear blush just for this special occasion.
Because you can just feel the honky tonk rising like steam.
Because the jacket is a men's large.
Because the car in the background was the same car I drove 8 years later when I got my license.

Halloween is tomorrow

Ruby: "This one's goin out too all my peeeeople!"
Everything is purely fun until somebody's wand breaks...
I think we're going to have a cold Halloween.

I know there's been some negativity surrounding Halloween this year (I am not quite sure who from??), but we're all dressed up as princesses in Lehi. Our neighbors better be shopping for candy AS WE SPEAK because we're coming to get it tomorrow night. Actually, we had a Family Home Evening last night with a short lesson on how Halloween is all about "giving" (I know, so far from the truth) and we talked about how giving people candy makes us feel happy inside. Their eyes glazed over and I swear they were going to combust because when the lesson was over we were going to... wait for it... ... .... carve a punnkinnn!!!!

Pre-Halloween

Today is a good day. It's October 26. Only a few days away from Halloween being OVER. I guess I am a long list of things, including a humbug. I've never really liked anything involving pumpkins... like all the gleeful hordes of Utah caucasians (all dressed up with that warm mormon grin) that harvest pumpkins at a REAL pumpkin patch like, maybe all of the pumpkins will be gone if we don't go to a farm and get one... oh wait, there are like a thousand at Walmart and they're half the price!!! And I'm not mocking anyone in particular (which I know about 20 people I'm probably directly mocking) because if you want to bring your kids to a pumpkin patch they're probably so much happier for it than my girls who sit at home and never know what it's like to have a hayride... but a blog is a blog. And this is mine.

The word "Boo" is also heavily used in this area teaming with do-gooders. We were "Boo-ed", which means some strange person knocks on your door, leaves a treat with a piece of paper with a Halloween poem and runs away. WHAT? A POEM? Hilarious. This is my translation of the poem: Dear neighbor, on this Satanic holiday, because I brought you treats, you must feel compelled to drive to your real estate office, make copies of the large cartoon ghost (which probably isn't anything like a real ghost looks like and who am I to give my child a sheltered version of what the dead really look like?) and pass treats (taking up more of your precious energy and time) out to two additional neighbors, including the cartoon ghost insert. Grace and Ruby: if you go to a haunted house, you will not find any cartoon ghosts. And don't go to a haunted house before asking me first, because then we'll have a lot to talk about. I just hate feeling compelled. If it's religously, then great. Let me be compelled to get my butt out of bed and go to church, but neighborly candy-and-ghost-sharing? Nah. Then I forgot to tape up the ghost in MY window signifying that I've already been "Boo-ed", so I got "Boo-ed" again. Double whoops.

My Halloween wish is that we will accidentally forget to turn on the porch light and accidentally turn on some great music loud enough to not hear any knocks. And then maybe my girls, just one more year, will be too young to know that TODAY IS HALLOWEEN and that we can't miss out and maybe we'll stay in and drink hot chocolate and play CandyLand and laugh really loud. And that the neighbor kids love me just enough to NOT mention Halloween. Or ring the doorbell.
But reality speaks to me loud and clear and I know that I'll have my Canon out ready to snap pictures of them in their princess dresses and $5 tiaras (such a rip off, but really jeweley and cute, pink and sparkly). And then we'll trick or treat against the bitter wind, exchanging smiles with neighbor parents accompanying their kids, with sympathetic "oohs and ahs" as the children pass by in their stiff jackets. We will all suddenly know how lucky we are to have children to bring us out of our self-composed shell and into the world that is spinning so quickly around us.