A Happy Halloween Sniper-Witch.

You see, I had it all very well planned out as you all know is my nature. I found the girls' costumes at goodwill for $4 each. A total steal. It has been my life long dream, well, since Jules was born, to do a Wizard of Oz theme. Only, I was supposed to be the witch b/c I have a witch costume and one of the girls was to be Dorothy and the other Glenda the Good Witch. You see, that made sense b/c the girls have princess costumes and I don't, Mia. Who, this year, suddenly wanted to be the witch and stole my thunder. She told me to be Glenda. Oh, o.k. Let me pull my fairy princess costume out of the back of my closet and bop you on the head with my magic wand that I keep in my purse just in case.

Anyway, on the exact day we were to leave to go see my sister and her family Mia says, for the first time ever, that she needs green face paint. Face paint is annoying and sticky. She hates annoying and sticky. Why now do we all of the sudden want to be annoyed and sticky?

No big deal? NO big deal? NO BIG DEAL? You say?

There was no time for a Wal-Mart trip. If you are at all a seasoned Wal-Mart shopper you know that a quick trip there isn’t possible. O.k., so maybe you don’t get distracted and spend up to 3 hours or more browsing the vast array of medium ball point pens and other office supplies when you only needed toilet paper. But if that’s not the problem then it might very well be the customer directly in front of you who is rummaging through her coupon purse (I know you coupon girls are nice people and all but not everyone is so organized as you all are and so a hunt for 1 coupon in a stack of 100 that are not alphabetized can be an irritant). And, if that’s not it then you might get the Chatty Checker like I did today who feels the need to start a new chapter of her life story after every. single. scan.

beeeep.

You try your best to be kind. To listen. To be the shining light of Jesus in her day.

And then you crack when she gets to her Junior year of high school when her finger so unfortunately got chopped off in a freak accident with Billy Joe Bob and an electric pencil sharpener leaving her with the very nub she is pointing at the debit card swiper with to break your horrified stare so you will confirm the amount.

No, there was no time for a trip to Wal-Mart that day.

However, using my keen memory, it dawned on me that my sister would be stopping by her Wal-Mart and so I call her up. Loe and behold she is there at that very moment.

Hey sis, could you pick me up some green face paint? Yeah, the cheap kind. Witch green, as in Wicked Witch of the West. Super. Your the BEST!

4.5 hours later we arrive. A little play time for the kids and they were down for the count. Ahh, school, how we love it when you wear them out.

Levi and Brian get up at the ghastly hour of 5am to go hunting. I am almost positive Levi has no recollection of the hunting event at all. Totally comatose.

Steph and I man the children, cook, watch women-who-kill on Snapped, my new favorite quality television program, and begin dressing the kids for the candy fest that was about to be.

O.k., one last touch. Wicked Witch of the West needs to get her green on.

Steph, you get that green paint? Where is it? K. Thanks!
Hmmm, this doesn’t look.....wait....”Pro-Force Camouflage Face Paint”....ooohhh kay. Guess that's what color witches have to be when they are forced to skim the bottom of the barrel of picked over costume accessories. Maybe it won’t matter.



And then again, maybe it will.

We went to Raisin’ Cain’s for some good chicken strips and secret sauce and on the way in Levi leaned over and whispered to me....”Why does Mia look like a sniper?”



After dinner we went Trick or Treating the good old fashioned door to door way. So the entire night the Wicked Witch of the West was a bit hard to see b/c she was, although she had no idea, a sniper-witch all dressed in black.

Ryder and Jules were a bit shy at first but warmed up eventually. Jules and Levi walked up to their first house and on the way back Jules said with a sigh of relief “Well, that was easy.” Perhaps she thought she would have to do something or pay for the candy...never know what’s going through their minds.

Then one candy-giver said “Let me here those magic words!!” and Jules blurted out “PLEASE!” With the biggest grin she could muster as she eyed the skittles in the ladies bucket-o-candy. The lady explained that on every other night that would be correct but tonight it was Trick or Treat, and then gave her a double fist full of candy. I’m thinking please worked just as well....and maybe the dimples helped.

Mattie and Mia were thrown off by a strange man or-maybe-he-was-a-mannequin leaning against a mailbox. He was freaky. I’ll have to admit I wasn’t for sure either. He was holding a bucket of candy and if the kids reached in he would snap his head their direction and moan “just take one!” Other than that he was as still as a statue.



From Left to Right we have Wolverine, The Wicked Witch of the West, Super Girl, and The cutest Dorothy I've ever seen.

When it was all over Steph and I decided that there was in no way enough REAL candy for us to have a chance at stealing any without getting caught so a quick stop by the dollar tree and voila! Now we have enough to share. They didn’t even notice that their candy buckets grew by 50%. How rude.

Uncle Brian built a fire and Levi sort of helped but the 5 am wake up call was wearing on him. The kids jumped on the trampoline and Mia, well, she just looked ridiculous. In an adorable and creepy sort of way.


Aunt Stephanie does not hide her emotions well and proceeded to laugh hysterically at her poor defenseless sniper-niece who was none to happy about being laughed at.

Which made it all the more funny to both of us.

They roasted “smarshmallows” according to Jules and drowned their sorrows in sugar.


I made giant chocolate covered pretzel sticks with sprinkles that were to die for.

And so we ended the night with lots of sugar and 4 dirty sweaty kids who had such a sugar high they slept with their eyes open. I think.

We did indeed have a Happy Halloween.

P.S. Little Audrie was an angel. Sleeping. Eating. and Repeating.

If anybody made it through this very long post yes, we finally have our computer AND switched internet providers so I'm now re-connected with the world. More consitant posts to come!