I can't believe how fast October has raced by. Suddenly, the big day is here... Halloween. I am basically obsessed with Halloween. This month, I have dragged the girls and Chris (when he has been free), to every single event I could find that had anything to do with harvest, pumpkins, ghosts, and candy. We have been now to four harvest festivals, three pumpkin patches, two Halloween carnivals, and one nocturnal animal night hike. Natalie has climbed on tractors, run through corn mazes, sat on hay rides, and has saddled up on three different pony rides. It has been an amazing Halloween season! I have been happy to notice that Natalie does not seem affected at all by the "scariness" that can come with the holiday. While we walked by decorated houses the other night, she told me "Momma, I see a ghost! I love ghosts!" Maybe she will end up like me, a lover of all things spooky.. or the fright factor will hit her next year. Noelle points out each pumpkin, spider and bat with the same joyful yell of "Ball" while she points eagerly for me to notice the particular decoration she is referring to. On one night, she was calling pumpkins "Nan-nin" but the next night, they had turned back into "ball"s. Two things have put Noelle over the edge and petrified her this month and they include the person dressed as a giant penguin at Sea World and the pastor at Natalie's Christian preschool. All he had said to Noelle was "Well, hello there!" Her face crumbled into an expression that could fit someone who just lost a finger in a machine. I had flashbacks to the kid in "The Omen" (the devil as a child) when he realizes his parents intend to take him inside a church. Pretty funny really.
Now the month and alas the Halloween holiday season is coming to a close. Our Halloween parties are already done and soon trick or treating will be here and gone. My little spiders (they have spider costumes this year) will fill up their candy bags and then it will be all over. While part of me will be sad, the stores are already gearing up for Christmas and that will bring with it new and different holiday experiences. I must say though, there is simply nothing like Halloween.
