Alana was thrilled to have another princess to play with.

We could not have envisioned a visit going any better!

Benton and Carson had Harvest Festival activities at school this afternoon. This is basically a costume parade around the outside of the school followed by various fun activities inside the classroom. The parade started at 2:15 and everyone was finished with the classroom parties by 3:30pm.

Here is Carson during the parade. My little Ninja is walking with his friend, Tom Cat (a.k.a. Jack). Alana and I were along the parade route, which was sunny and relatively warm (in the mid-60′s).

Here is Benton in his classroom, digging into a bowl of “brains” (spaghetti) in search of rats, eyeballs, and spiderwebs. This was a rather slimy but fun activity.

Other activities for the classes included cookie decorating, bean bag tosses, mazes, bingo, and limbo, just to name some of the ones I got to see. Benton’s teacher (Cinderella with long white gloves on) finally gave in to the pestering from the kids and dug into the brains. It was fun to watch her AND watch the kids be entertained by their teacher doing this slimy thing. Of course, with her gloves removed and long nails digging in, she got to enjoy the “brains” a little longer than the kids, as it got all stuffed under the nails.

After school, we came home and played until our friends, the Hannan’s showed up for a quick dinner and some trick or treating, which was scheduled from 6-8pm. With their 3 kids and a friend, and our 3 kids, we had a troupe of 7 trick or treaters hitting the street.

Alana was a little slower than the rest, but didn’t seem to mind hitting every other house or so…. in the beginning. About 30 minutes into the trick or treating, she realized that she wanted to go to all the houses she saw the other kids at, so Tim provided much needed transportation between houses for her. She lasted about an hour and got her “chariot” to take her home to bed while I continued along with the boys.

By 7:30pm, the boys were ready to come home and count their booty. Here is a picture of Carson with his lot (and Benton’s ziplok bag of candy). He sorted his candy in order to fill out a graph he was assigned to do from school. My estimate is that between the two boys and Alana, we gained 4+ pounds of candy!!! The pounds and pounds of candy I bought to hand out were about the right amount, with just a handful or two leftover. Despite Carson’s extra large collection of candy, he still tried to “borrow” candy from Alana’s bag and the extra candy we had leftover.

Thankfully, the school district planned a 2 hour late start day for tomorrow, which means Benton won’t have to be at school until 11:00am and Carson won’t arrive until 2:00pm. We will be off to the farm over the weekend and can hopefully run off some of this extra sugar!

Happy Halloween!

We had a slow start to the morning, but then headed out around 10:30 to drive up to the Wadsworth Lyrens’ house. We got there early afternoon and the kids played for a few hours before we donned costumes and headed up to Julie’s cousin’s house in Cleveland for their annual Halloween Party. Julie’s cousin, Anne, is basically a Martha Stewart clone who has a side job as a doctor. So, the decorations at the party included headstones in the front yard, faux “legs” of her two sons coming through the ceiling in the sunroom, spiders mounted on the ceiling, rats running up the banister, and so on. The food was even more out of control: “fingers” (bread sticks with red pumpkin seeds tacked on the end), chocolate spiders, hard-boiled eggs with spiderwebs on them, chocolate mice (licorice tails), and four or five dishes that weren’t specifically Halloween-themed, but were delicious and high effort in the making! Oh…and each dish had a meticulously lettered sign stuck in it explaining what it was. The goodie bags for the kids were two layers of brown lunch bags, with the outer bags stripped and shredded in a way…that I’m not describing effectively at all!

Benton went in full camo, including face paint. He’s into a heavy camouflage/soldier phase, which we sort of hope passes sooner rather than later! Carson was a Ninja. Alana was a princess. A princess who, mind you, fell asleep five minutes before we arrived at the party. So, I stayed in the car and let her sleep for 45 minutes before heading in. Needless to say, she was a still a bit groggy when we entered the house, so I had her clinging to me as she checked out the very realistic mummy (Anne again…included face “paint” that was made from flour, water, and some sort of paper — she is certifiabley out. Of. CONTROL!), a werewolf (Anne’s husband, Matt…including hairy feet, fangs, and pointy ears), a clown (Aunt Elaine), and any other number of characters. Ultimately, Alana warmed up to the event and had a great time.

Carson, as is his tendency, found a group of cousins and friends to tear around the house with. Luckily, his Ninja sword, another kid’s light saber, his second-cousin’s pirate saber, and other kids’ various plastic weapons did not inflict any real harm.

Oh. Yeah. Julie and I were M&Ms. Julie painted an M on a red sweatshirt for me, and she sewed a felt M on her yellow sweatshirt. I don’t think we actually made the crack that we were M&Ms — Julie plain and me “with nuts” — all evening! As it turned out, Julie’s Uncle Bill and her cousin’s son, Luke, came as M&Ms, too. But with more elaborate costumes.

We headed out ~8:45 and were back in Wadsworth by 9:30.

And, we’re getting ready to head back to Columbus!

In a separate box, Alana’s princess costume arrived. It is about as pink as you can get and came with princess sparkling shoes, a princess tiara, complete with netting that dangles down in back, and a light-up princess wand. She immediately had to have the ensemble on and wanted to know “What’s this for?” when I handed her the wand. I told her it was her princess wand. She grabbed it and started to carry it around.

In the meantime, Carson was transformed from a 5 year old child into a black warrior ninja who started to move ninja-like around the living room. This movement included wielding his sword while standing on and jumping off of the couch and various other things that “Carson” would not be allowed to do, but a ninja was expected to do.

After a quick run into see Tim in his office and show off her princess dress, Alana returned to start the meeting between princess and ninja. Within moments, it was a good verses evil match whereby the princess wand was used as a sword to defend against the ninja sword. Carson loved it (as expected), but so to did the little, dainty princess. In the end, I, the fairy god mother or the wicked witch, depending on whether you were enjoying this battle or not, stepped in to stop the action. I tried to explain that Alana’s princess wand was not for fighting.

Shortly afterwards, we got out of the costumes for dinner which brought a pause to the excitement. After returning from dinner, Alana found her princess wand and promptly whupped me on the leg. This led to her difficult choice of putting it down or getting it taken away. Seeing as Alana is 2 and a half and it was 7:30pm, she made the “choice” to have Dad put it away by not putting it down. This is where the “Princess Ninja Wand” title comes in.

Alana started to cry for she wanted her “ninja sword” back. I explained that it was a princess wand and that she had made the choice to have it put away. Apparently, she sort of listened, because she has since referred to it as her “princess ninja wand”.

Beware you trick or treaters who think you are stumbling across a cute, sweet little princess on Halloween night as she will have her Princess Ninja Wand and she knows how to use it!

In case you are wondering, Benton’s skeleton costume arrived, and he did not like it. So we are still on the hunt for something that he might wear, as I have given up hopes of finding something he will like. Carson has already made a pitch for us to keep the costume rather than return it, as he wants to wear it.

Boo to you!

By the way, my sore throat, mentioned in Tim’s last post, is not strep but I won’t get any culture results back on what it is for a few days. My trip to the doctor’s office resulted in some antibiotics which have made a world of difference. I am not back to normal, but I can swallow without wincing, so much progress has been made.

You would think, that, by the third child, a parent would know better than to utter the following to an as-yet-NOT-potty-trained two-year-old: “If you start going pee-pee on the potty, then you can start wearing princess underpants.” Once Alana heard this, she immediately headed to the bathroom, stripped her diaper off and sat on the potty. 2.3 seconds (and no pee-pee) later, she got up and announced that she wanted her princess underpants. Needless to say, that was not something I could deliver, as I had not yet purchased any! Why on earth I thought she would mull over my offer and work toward using the potty — rather than heading into the bathroom for immediate rewards — I haven’t a clue.

I was able to convince her that she needed to put her diaper back on and that underpants would be forthcoming after we had a chance to go shopping. A few days later, I picked up the underpants, and I decided to try out the cold-turkey approach to potty training. So, one morning earlier this month, Alana got to wear her princess underwear. We started with Cinderella, moved on to Belle, and finally ended up in Jasmine shortly after lunch. Suffice it to say, “cold turkey” was…um…cold. And wet. And yellow. And on the carpet. Several carpet cleanings later, we are back in diapers with the princess underwear awaiting her successful use of the potty.

Alana has started making announcements from the back seat of the car along the lines of, “My bladder’s full.” Or, “I went potty. In my diaper.” We’ll see how that plays out.