At Whitten's End

 Getting ready to head out to go trick or treating around my parents' neighborhood with their cousins  Katie (8) and Alex (6) in their Midevil Princess costumes  Firefighter Judah (4)  Alex (6), Katie (8), Superman Will (4) & Cinderella Maddie (4) Getting ready to head out... And they're off  Poor Casey literally fell on the first step of the first house and bumped up his forehead and skinned up below his nose real bad.... fortunately he was a trooper and rebounded quickly. Emma and Maddie also saw some pavement time at various points in the neighborhood :(  Heading into the neighborhood...  At Betty's house...  Emma enjoyed the wagon ride so much that she actually skipped a number of houses while she enjoyed her drink and relaxed  After a while we realized that we needed a wagon or stroller.  Mom called Dad who graciously brought us the wagon so that we could pull the kids and some of the candy. We kept setting Casey up in the...

Brad had to work today, but I decided that I'd get the kids out of the house and get the costumes on yet again so that we could partake in the HyVee Halloween party.  Let me just say that I wouldn't think grocery shopping & pumpkin painting/trick or treating/cookie decorating/hot dog eating makes for a happy marriage, but it was enjoyable for the kids despite the chaos for the adults and employees.   Kayla & Emma painting their pumpkins.  Kayla was very carefully painting her pumpkin and making it beautiful.  Unfortunately the setup and sheer volume of costumed kids didn't allow for detailed painting time so she had to hurry up to finish her project... it still turned out much better than my interpretation of blue on Casey's pumpkin and was beautiful!  Throughout the store, they had employees stationed to give out candy to the kids.  Orange arrows were taped to the floor to direct us where to go.  The station back by the frozen food a...

With only about an hour between our time of arrival from the Fright Night event until the little kids' bedtime, we let them eat a bit of candy and smoothies, then decided to get out the pumpkins before jammie time.  We got these cute little potatohead-esque  pieces to decorate our pumpkins, so we opted to let the girls use them in order to allow them to decorate their own pumpkin and to expedite bedtime plans.  We still have a handful of pumpkins that need some attention (one for each of us plus 2 for grammy and grandad!), but I figured I could take care of those on another day on my own. Emma and Daddy got started on her pumpkin face and quickly realized how easily the pieces broke if just jammed into the pumpkin.  I had saved all the supplies from years-past pumpkin carving kits, so they used the stabbing device to precut holes for the pieces.  Casey's undershirt was a tad bit, um, sticky after all the sucker juice that had accumulated, so he went shirt...

We ate our beef stew early and got the kids layered in their costumes and headed out to The District in Rock Island.  They were hosting their "Fright Night" which would have been more appropriately named "Frigid Night"... BURRRRRRRRR!  It was 38 degrees and very windy as we were about a block off the Mississippi and it's been blustery today (to fit our Winnie the Pooh theme appropriately).   Trying to reign in Casey isn't an easy feat... with daddy's help, we finally got a decent picture of the three of them We waited in line inside a tent to register for the costume contest.  I've never seen a more professionally run contest, though I have only seen one other costume contest for kids and that was at the Egg Scramble in Gibsonville, NC.  We entered Emma and Casey (Pooh and Tigger) in the "Pair" costume category, so they both had the same entry number and went up on the stage in front of the judges by themselves.  They were ...