A Full Week

Here's a brief overview of our very busy past week. We started out with a bit of a freak snow storm, followed with Thing 2's birthday, and then lastly - but not least - we hit the town for our annual celebration of Halloween.

Thing 2 had a quiet birthday this year. I really just couldn't delve into the craziness that is a child's birthday party this year, so we had our good friends over for dinner one night and had cake. There were times this week that I felt like a slacker mom for not hosting a huge, lavish birthday party for him. I mean, he already does nothing, and I feel guilty about that. But I simply couldn't get into the overpriced and overdone and the often completely unreasonable child's birthday party. I am in awe of what I see taking place out there in the big world of kiddie birthday parties, and I am reluctant to become a part of it all. For as long as I can manage, I plan to keep the 3 Things birthday parties simple, understated, and basic.

Our friends' little girl was born on the same day as David, so they both had a lot of fun and exchanged gifts. My incredibly-talented cake-making cousin granted Thing 2's only wish for a Scooby-Doo birthday cake. It. Was. Delicious. We had a family supper on Tuesday (his actual birthday) with Granny and some delicious Swiss Chalet chicken.


Much of Tuesday night was filled with snow, much to my dismay and much to the Weather Network's credit. They got it right for once. Although it pained me a little do so in OCTOBER, I had to take the 3 Things outside to play in the fresh, fluffy white stuff. I mean, they are kids, they're not bogged down with silly notions like it shouldn't be snowing in October.

It took 45 minutes and unmeasurable amounts of patience to get the 3 Things ready to embrace their first fall snowfall of the season.

I forget what we're supposed to do with this stuff.

Never. Eat. Yellow. Snow.


No smooch on my cheeks is gonna make me forgive you for shoving me into this big pink snowsuit . . .

Thankfully, autumn quickly returned to our lovely, capital city and the above seen snow was pretty much melted within a day or two. Just in time for . . . Halloween. Things were busy and I didn't get very many photos of the kids in their costumes. They were full of anticipation and excitement to go trick-or-treating and wanted to get out the door.

Here is Thing 3 totally squished into an adorable banana costume, lent to me by my friend Liz. Although she may be a completely mashed banana, she is still cute, nonetheless. She was a wonderfully good sport. By the end of the night she was most certainly ready to peel off that big yellow costume and cuddle into her warm PJs.

Thing 2 went as Spiderman, and looked so cute and super-hero-ish, he made his mama quite proud. After dutifully requesting "Trick or Treat" at four homes on our street, he finally reminded us that he is still a wee little toddler as he rang the doorbell at home number five and asked them, "could I have some candy, please?".

The obligatory family shot didn't work so well, Things 1 and 2 wouldn't sit still and you can barely see that Pete is Indiana Jones in this picture. I learned one valuable lesson in my role as parent chaperone and trick-or-treater-herder last night. No head-to-toe black on Halloween night!