It rained here, but that didn't dampen the festivities much. Everyone grabbed an umbrella and headed out anyway. (The older two are now ensconced on the sofa watching Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster while their little brother pilfers their candy. Considering the fact that they left it scattered all over the floor in the foyer and he can't open any of the packages anyway, I am leaving him to it.)

This year we had an Indian chief, a very pink flower fairy (G. said she looked like "an explosion of pink"), and a very small baseball player who walked up to our neighbor's door saying, "Bay-ball! Bay-ball!" very proudly. They have all been chocolated into the stratosphere by now, since last night the neighborhood hosted a "bonfire" (really it was just an outdoor fireplace with straw bales arranged around it) and all the kids in attendance were able to pillage the dessert table without any adults noticing much. Plus they made pixie sticks with candy sand.

Really big pixie sticks. GIANT pixie sticks.

It was a good thing they were able to run around outside until 8:30 or 9.

Friday we went to a Halloween party with our homeschool playgroup, which was not so much fueled by sugar as it was by the fact there were 12 or 14 boys there, and they were all dressed up. What was most interesting to me was they were playing battle, and then, due to a completely unspoken and invisible signal (to a grown-up anyway), they all paired up and had a decent mock-up of a medieval melee in the living room.

At the end of the day we only had a couple of injuries, some spilled kool-aid (when one of the kids kicked a ball in the living room), and only a few pieces of pizza leftover. So I would call this Halloween a grand success, in spite of the rain.

Although I will be glad to rest for a couple of weeks before we make our seven or eight hour Thanksgiving road-trip to Tennessee.