Once again, the calendar is filling up with all sorts of Halloween fun. Things kick off this weekend with the little kids coming for Nana and Papa Halloween weekend. Gone are the days when all 7 could come - they are now all so busy with all of their school and extra curricular activities - not to mention a tailgate and Gator game - but the littles still look forward to all of the silliness - almost as much as I do! And, EVERYONE will be able to come to our family costume party this year, so I am O.K. with this.
And so, I have been busy getting things ready and stacking them up on the dining room table so I will be ready to go when they arrive. I have spent enough years raising and working with kids that I know what things have to be done before they get here so we will have a successful time. A lot of the crafts we do require painting. They love to paint but I try to get the base coating done for them because, let's face it, no one enjoys watching paint dry. I like to have things they can do and enjoy doing! I also try to come up with things we haven't done before and things that are worth spending time on - something that they might keep "for all eternity" to remember their times with us - lol.
So the stacks are growing ever larger as the day fast approaches. I will be sure to post pictures as we go along.
Most of what we need for our "bloody eyeball" drinks.
The start of one of our crafts.
We are going to "grow" our big, hairy spider in this tub. I love to have something going that will follow us through the whole weekend and these "growing" things always excite the kids! They will run to check on him a hundred times before the weekend is over.
And here is my ever-growing stack of witch hats. Every year we do a picture of all seven kids decked out in the hats. This year we will do it before we start the party. I have always had many hats to choose from but some were more elaborate than others and some were definitely more favored than others. I always felt bad when each child couldn't get just the fancy one he/she wanted so this year I set out to find some more that would be the envy of any well dressed witch. I think I may have outdone myself - and I am not done looking yet!
When Mom and Dad come to pick up the kids on Sunday, we are all loading in the car and heading to one of our favorite pumpkin patches in Dunnellon. This is a "real" patch where the pumpkins are still growing on the vines and you get to head out and cut just the perfect one!. They also have a corn maze, hayride, sunflower field and lots and lots of photo ops....so you know there will be more pictures coming your way.
And then I got the loveliest text message the other night. It came from grand daughter #1 asking us if we could fit in a trip up to Alachua to do our traditional pumpkin patch visit with them and then a trip to "Scarecrow Row" and dinner. Wow, how could we refuse such an offer? And the fact that she told us how much this tradition means to her warms my heart. This trip has been a tradition for years but now that she is in college and keeping very busy with all of that, I thought this might be the year when I had to be ready for a change. Looks like I have at least one more year to go!
After that, I think I had better get started thinking about costumes because the big party will be here before we know it - can't wait. Stay tuned.
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