Rest of October

Darren's parents came the week after fall break. Becca was in school all day but that gave grandma a chance to spend some time with just Barrett. Unlike Becca who took a little time to warm up, Barrett warmed up instantly to them. He went right into grandma's arms without hesitation and spent to rest of the week getting her attention...of which he loves to be the center of. We had a nice visit; it was nice having another set of hands around the house and Darren's dad helped us do a few small projects that needed to be done around the house: light fixture in living room, Becca's toybox, kids bathroom sink all needed fixing...I think there were a few more but I don't remember. They finished the week at Becca's school at her fall festival. I had to work at Becca's class at the lollipop tree the first half hour but they enjoyed walking around playing games, etc. The guys went home after a little bit to do the cooking and we continued to play games. Barrett was getting fussy so we decided to go get them a bite to eat. They were supposed to have hot dogs and chili but when we got there...about an hour to hour and a half into it, they were out of hot dogs. After some convincing, Barrett decided the chili wasn't half bad.

The next week was final preparation for trunk or treat at our church. I was mainly in charge of putting it together. I spent the week running around gathering items, getting help, etc. Our pastor was making calls trying to generate more trunks as well. A couple of sweet ladies offered to come and help on Friday morning. They were helping me separate candy into buckets, make welcome bags for visitors, etc. My friend called me about an hour after I dropped Barrett off to tell me he had thrown up. Now tell me, why do kids get sick in the middle of the night or at the most inopportune times?? My husband was the only one at work so he couldn't leave. My wonderful, wonderful, friend called back and said in case it was one of those fluke things, she'd throw his clothes in the wash, give him one her son's shirts to wear and let me know if it happened again. Okay, that was on thing off my mind for the moment. Luckily, Barrett didn't throw up again who know why but I'm glad my friend was willing to keep him. I started around 9 or 9:30 and didn't stop until 7:30 that evening, except to go home, get Becca off the bus, get all the kids costumes, the brownies I made and everything else I needed to get things prepped. On the way to pick up Barrett, I remembered I hadn't put down numbers for the cake walk, so I stopped by Dollar General on my way and picked up some masking tape. I had a little over an hour to get the rest of the games set up and ready; we were working right up to the time people were standing around waiting for us but we did it. We had ours on Friday night to coincide with the downtown businesses who pass out candy on Halloween or the last business day before Halloweeen, so we catch a lot of foot traffic. There were some things that went smoothly and some things we could have done differently but the kids had fun and didn't really know the difference so I saw all in all it was a success.

Saturday, it was nice to sleep in, relax and not do much. Our town did Halloween on Saturday, so we invited some friends over to come and trick or treat with us. I didn't realize I didn't have a picture with just Becca and Barrett...maybe I should have them get dressed up again to take their pictures. I got Barrett's costume at the kids consignment sale. It was homemade and the tail really made the costume...there were several strangers who asked if they could take a picture and people were commenting on it all night. It was pretty cute with the tail dragging on the ground. I definitely got my $7 worth, plus it was warm which was a bonus. Becca was Jessie from Toy Story. I had already gotten Barrett's costume by the time Becca figured out what she was going to be. Next year, I need to find out what Becca wants and try and coordinate Barrett's costume. Lightning's Pit Crew, Mario, Jessie and my little stinker I know it's a little blurry but you get the effect