A dinosaur, a witch, a mom, and a Mammy all drive about a hundred thirty miles or so and in middle of it all take a three mile walk in search of candy... Sounds like a bad joke right? Well, it was not; it was Halloween!! We had the busiest and most exciting Halloween ever this year! We started the day at about 11am and headed to Harrison to see Gigi Suzanne, Laura, and John. As always, the kids loved going to visit and of course, play with Gigi's cool toys. Our second child and only daughter, aka the baddest witch in the world, spent the first fifteen minutes or so mesmerized by Laura and John's wheels (I think she was secretly jealous she doesn't have a stroller like that!), but she got over it and even graced them with her special head bopping, lip pooching dance to Adele. John also improved himself in her sights when he told her how pretty she was. With this girl, flattery will get you EVERYWHERE! The mean, green dinosaur boy gave Gigi his best roar, but refused to do any poetry performances. I'd like to say it's because he hates to be a showoff, but that's totally not true. He was just embarrassed. Anyway, thanks to Gigi for the fortifying cake and cookies to start the afternoon and evening! Next stop was FedEx to see Pops and drop Daddy some corn dogs for lunch. (Sonic had them for 50 cents each that day, I think in total, Mammy bought about a dozen...) After that, we hit the square in Berryville. We trick-or-treated Mammy's work, mommy's hair salon, the cool used bookstore, and tons of other businesses on the square, not to mention several people who were running for some sort of political office, whom we aren't necessarily going to vote for, but we took their candy anyway! Our last stop was to be the trunk-or-treat at church in Kimberling City. The baddest witch in the world was feeling a little queasy in her costume on the ride up, so to save it from a possible vomitrocious explosion, Mammy pulled over at the gas station in Blue Eye and mommy stripped her down and rolled the car windows down. After a quick Sour Patch run by Mammy, the happy troupe were on their way again. One more stop at Harter House by mommy for some emergency pacifiers and a bag of Cheetos, we made it to our final destination! We made our way through the trunk-or-treat, then set off on our grand adventure. Carrying the witch and trying to keep the dinosaur in check, we trekked up and down hills for about three miles, hit a dead end, and then trekked back. The mean, green dinosaur claims it was a twenty-eight mile walk and we got "about a hundred pounds of candy." We did get a LOT of candy, which is almost gone now, and the kids had a great time! The mean, green dinosaur had always been too afraid to go "real" trick-or-treating, so this was his first year out and about. He went up to several houses on his own and only got scared a couple of times at some yard decorations (one was a fake snake that really hissed at you, and it was admittedly disturbing). By the end of the night, Mammy and I were completely exhausted. The kids spread the candy out on the kitchen table and Daddy helped them go through it all. They had to separate the chocolate from the other stuff, (Daddy doesn't like his chocolate to end up tasting "fruity") and so we ended up with two mixing bowls full to the top! Overall, it was a good haul, a great time, and I woke up the next morning with my arms on fire from carrying the baddest witch in the world, who just doesn't walk fast enough to keep up yet. The mean, green dinosaur says it was the best day of his life so far and actually cried on the way home because Halloween was only one day. So of course, Mammy extended the holiday and we had a Halloween snack party at her house yesterday. It's amazing how only grandparents have the supernatural ability to add a day to holidays and, even further, to make grandchildren believe that they really did it. On another note, though you will all probably consider us mentally unstable, we put up our Christmas tree the weekend before Halloween this year. In years past, we traditionally decorate for Christmas the weekend after Halloween, but we were in the spirit, the weather was cold, the fireplace was blazing, and well, we jumped the gun. So the House of Cockrell is ready to bring on the holidays. Mark and I impressed ourselves this year and finished our Christmas shopping the second weekend in October, so we even have presents wrapped and under the tree. Surprisingly, the kids have pretty much left them alone (fingers crossed, knock on wood!). Our school unit is going to be the letter Uu and Us this week, so I have plans to make a "thankful" or "gratefulness" wreath to hang in the house to coordinate with the unit. I saw a cute idea in a magazine (thanks again MaMa and PaPa for the subscription!!), where you cut out leaf shapes and let everyone write things they are thankful for and pin them to your wreath. That's the tone we're trying to set for the hoilday season this year, so it seemed like an appropriate project to start with. My next post, I plan to reflect a little on what the last year has meant to us here at the House of Cockrell, what the holiday season means to us and what we're thankful for (spoiler alert: you, our family, are one of them!). Keep a weather eye out for it (the mean, green dinosaur is into pirates lately!) and in the meantime, even though it's early, may your days be merry and bright!!!
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