Scary Halloween

Halloween was our official first day in the new rental home.

The day started off early with a trip to Target to pick up some essentials - light bulbs, hooks, garbage can, dish soap, fairy wings and candy.

Then off to Ikea, with all six kids this was probably the scariest activity of the day. We fed them a cheap breakfast and took off with 3 carts through the showroom and an additional pallet cart through the marketplace.

With so many bugs going around I didn't think it would be a good idea to leave any of them in small land -I guess we already had a bug of our own because one child was feverish and screaming well before we exited the store. The rest of the kids were running wild, racing carts, jumping on beds and collecting candy from the in store trick-or-treating station.  All the while I painfully (still sore with my back and tailbone after falling back out of the van) waddled behind trying to comfort the feverish child.

On the way home we stopped to buy pumpkins but there was no time to carve them. I spent the rest of the day unboxing while Paul was busy assembling.  He only stopped to unclog a toilet, first riding the Madsen bike to the local hardware store to buy a plunger.

We don't have a TV yet so all the boys listened to the Michigan game on the radio, it was a disappointing game and James was so disgusted with the outcome he switched his costume from a Michigan football player to Indiana Jones just 5 minutes before trick-or-treating.

Maryanna was the second child to come down with a fever and only got off the couch to take a picture and ring our doorbell.  Henry still had a fever but I couldn't resist fitting him into the Curious George costume I sewed for James 9 years ago.

There was no time (or even clear space) for sorting, counting, and graphing like we did last year.  The candy is all in a bowl and I'm thinking with sick children it might be better off in the garbage.  I'm glad I didn't toss it yet because my friend Karen just blogged about all the cool candy experiments she did with her kids -check them out here.

Halloween wasn't so much fun as it was memorable and I'm sure glad this move wasn't executed within days of Christmas.