Halloween Adventures

I cannot believe I let the entire month of October go by without putting up a single decoration in my home, baking and decorating sugar cookies (for friends, neighbors, visiting teachees, etc.) and not starting "the Phantom Ghost Treater" in our complex! This baby must be sucking the life out of me.... Without these things, however, we did end up having a pretty good Halloween:

One week before Halloween, our good friends, the Machado's, hooked us up with tickets to "Mickey's Halloween Treat" at Disney's California Adventure. It was so much fun! There were, I think, 16 of us total and we all dressed as dominoes. It was the easiest costume (almost, keep reading) I've ever worn. We all wore black and our friends, Joey & Gabbie, provided strips of paper for our center lines and cut out circles for our dots (we taped it all on). I was really blown away by how many moms of young children wore skimpy costumes. Honestly, one mom's outfit looked like it came from Fredrick's! Only two rides were not open that night (Grizzly Run Rapids & the Sun Wheel) and they handed out SO much candy that we put it out for the trick-or-treaters Halloween night rather than buy anymore. Gio & I actually only rode one ride that night (Toy Story Mania) while everyone else also got to ride the Tower of Terror. Thankfully, our friends also provided a wheelchair for Ryan to push me around in or I would not have made it through the night. The event is supposed to be from 7:30-11:30 only but I'm pretty sure we didn't leave the park til way past midnight 'cause we didn't get home 'til after 1! Thank you again, Machado Family!

We don't usually give Gio options when it comes to what he's going to be for Halloween, we just choose for him, but this year we at least ran the idea past him before assembling the costume. He was THRILLED when I asked him if he'd like to be Charlie Brown. We spend a lot of time watching Charlie Brown DVDs around here. When I pop popcorn and tell Gio we're watching a CB DVD in the afternoon he knows mommy's not gonna stay awake for the viewing of it (a frequent occurrence). He's very good at sitting right next to me and even occasionally will fall asleep himself.

Halloween was a very busy day. We started off with a party at Tot Lot. There was story time, 5 or 6 different"projects" (crafts), and viewing of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." For snack time they had pizza and mini cupcakes - definitely not the norm. It ended with dancing to Halloween music until all the mommies picked up their kidlets. Each kid also got their own pumpkin bucket full of treats and goodies. Gio followed a girl who was dressed as Jasmine from Aladdin all over the place, asking her to dance, take a picture with him and even come to his house! He has been asking to watch that movie every day for the past week or so.

Later, we attended our Church Halloween party. Here, I took off my shoes, making my costume "being barefoot and pregnant." Ryan dressed as a Disneyland tourist/annual passholder. There were lots of game booths, karaoke and sweets to eat. Ryan won me a soda at the ring toss soda booth. He's so thoughtful! They had trick-or-treating in the hallways and didn't mind when the kids went through multiple times. My friend, Cathy, handed out glow-in-the-dark earrings (not pierced), bracelets and drop necklaces. Pretty cool!

After that party, we headed to Nana's to trick-or-treat on her block (the only real trick-or-treating I let Gio do). I was pretty sad to see how many people weren't handing out candy and how few kids were out. Gio had a great time, though. Several people, throughout the day, asked how we even thought up his costume, much less found it. A big "thank-you" to my friend, Aaron, for printing it. It was actually amazingly difficult to find a yellow t-shirt and black shorts. Must be the time of year.