Happy Halloween!

I say Happy Halloween to you all because this was one of my favorite holidays as a child and I really enjoy preparing for this holiday now with my little ones. I set out all of my decorations on Oct 1st. We checked out Halloween themed books from the library, and I made my Frannie a little witch costume. Well...I made the skirt. The rest of it is a black leotard and accessories purchased at the Dollar Tree, but it was fun to do a DIY costume rather than just buying one. She seemed excited about being a witch and I even taught her a witchy laugh along with the standard "trick or treat". Here's my girl!




They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words, but I don't believe it. These pictures tell almost nothing about what my poor Frannie's day was like. The child got a high fever and was barfing all. day. Her fever got as high as 103.4 and she was sicker than I've ever seen her. I cannot remember Frannie ever having to vomit. I'm pretty sure this is the first time. And it was a lot. And she is such a small child anyways, I felt so bad for her. She puked on the couch, the carpet, and in trashcans and toilets.

Don't ask me where she got it. I have no idea. It was only two days ago that we were in the ER and I always thought diseases took at least 3 days to really affect you. This thing just came out of nowhere. The day before she was perfectly fine.

We were invited to a Halloween party, and it was definitely ix-nay on that. We were going to have friends over for trick or treating, and it was ix-nay on that as well. I actually wasn't going to take her out trick or treating at all, but by 6:30 pm she was sitting on the couch and feeling better, and I asked if she wanted to go trick or treating "Just a little bit." She turned to me and said with bright eyes "It's time?" So after that whole month of talking about it here we were at the time to go. So we put on her costume, got the pictures, and I took her down the street.

This is our first year living here, and I must say the neighbors don't live up to my Halloween fantasies. In my old neighborhood, everyone participated. It seemed like almost every house had a glowing Jack-o-lantern and there were groups of children and parents up and down the streets. Here, it was essentially deserted. We did get some trick or treat candy from a few participating homes, but I didn't see one Jack-o-lantern and I didn't see one other child or parent on the street other than me and Labibah (we went together). Our neighborhood certainly doesn't lack for kids (there are 17 children on my street alone, not including teenagers) so I'm not sure where the lack-luster holiday participation is coming from. (Perhaps the high amount of Muslim neighbors sort of cuts down on things. Afterall, it isn't their custom.)

I never thought I would be interested in taking the kids to a church Halloween festival, but our current neighborhood certainly isn't going to foster any fun memories for the kids, so I may need to reevaluate my future Halloween plans.

So it has been an interesting week in my household!! I am SOOOOOO THANKFUL for my dad and mom who tag-teamed grandparenting today and came by the house to help me. I'm not sure how I would've handled things without their help especially what with JJ needing just as much care as Frannie, just in a different way. Dad came by in the morning and brought supplies and helped, and then Mom took over at about 2pm. So I had an extra pair of hands all day long. I'm the luckiest girl! Frannie and Adam are two lucky kids!

Here's a pic of my baby just because he's cute.



He is healing up nicely I can tell. Follow-up appointment is on Monday.

So Happy Halloween to my throngs (or handful) of readers ;) I'm sure next year will be a bit more festive for us!

Now it's time to decorate for Thanksgiving...