Our Happy Halloween

When we lived down in Texas, I learned that there are people in the world who do not "celebrate" Halloween. They don't carve pumpkins, they don't trick or treat, and they don't even dress up. This seemed strange to me at first; however, I must admit that their skepticism of celebrating the "devil's holiday" has made me question whether I should celebrate Halloween too. Fortunately for my kids, Michael thinks that trick-or-treating is a necessary rite of passage each year for kids, so we always dress the kids up for trick-or-treating and have a great time carving pumpkins. Interestingly in Lima, Halloween is not celebrated; HOWEVER, trick-or-treating is. They just have it on a different night and everyone goes all out for it. All the stores in the mall and many other businesses have trick-or-treating times, each township has it's own "Beggars' Night" celebration, which allows kids to go to several different townships for trick-or-treating. The celebration of this holiday can be literally a week long event. So, needless to say, we had a fun week.

On Monday for our Family Home Evening, we carved pumpkins. I found a Pumpkin Carving kit on Amazon for $2 that came complete with a CD where you can make your own jack-o-lantern pattern. The boys had a great time picking out their pumpkin face. Alden wanted a scary face while Thobe wanted a funny face on his pumpkin. They all enjoyed pulling out seeds, and Hyrum especially enjoyed trying to steal the pumpkin carvers and knives from us. Not to brag, but I must admit that these were the coolest pumpkins that Michael and I have carved (nearly everyone in the neighborhood's pumpkins looked better than ours, but they were our personal best). Anyway, it was a fun FHE.

On Tuesday, someone in our neighborhood "Booed" us, which simply means that they left a bag of candy on our doorstep and a note telling us that we needed to pass it on. This was an especially fun surprise for the boys.

On Wednesday, we went to our ward Halloween party where the kids finally got to wear their costumes. Back in August, shortly after seeing Star Wars Clone Wars, Alden informed us that he wanted to be a clone for Halloween, and Thobe said that he wanted to be Obi Wan Kenobi (his favorite Star Wars character). I began scouring the Internet and in the end, got ripped off on Alden and Thobe's costumes--oh well. I wanted Hyrum to be Yoda, but I think every parent who had any interest in Star Wars wanted their 2 year old boy to be Yoda too and were quicker about buying their costume than I was, so we ended up settling for Darth Vader. Anyway, all three boys were very excited to wear their costumes. At our ward party, we had a very large hodge podge of soup and corn bread. Then the kids played a bunch of games, and then they all went around trick-or-treating from room to room. We came away with a ton more chocolate and candy than should ever exist in the house of a person like me who has no self-control when it comes to sweets (fortunately, I also had dental work that day that left me with a very, very sore tooth--it only deterred me a little).

Thursday was Thobe's Halloween party at school. Hyrum and I went to help out as the kids in Thobe's class went to the offices all over his preschool to trick-or-treat. It was very fun and cute. Later that evening was our neighborhood's trick-or-treat. We had several families from the ward come over and trick-or-treat with us. It was a lot of fun. We really had a nice time, although again we got more candy than we got rid of, which makes a bad weight gaining situation for me.

Friday, Halloween day, we went to Dayton to follow up with Thobe's nephrologist. He was given a clean bill of health, and the doctor confirmed to me that he must have had a virus, like strep, that did temporary damage to his kidneys. What a great relief it is to not only know that Thobe is a healthy boy but more importantly to know that God hears and answers our prayers. When we got home, I rushed to Alden's school to help with his Halloween party in his class, and then we went to the park to play with a couple of Alden's friends from school. That night was a typical Friday night at the Monday house-- a little rowdy, yet fairly relaxed, with a lot of singing, giggling, and fun.