Falloween Party, part 2

As crazy as it sounds to have a party during deployment, it really was fun.  The kids helped me with everything; from planning to cleaning the house to scooping the poop and taking care of the dog to prepping the food.  It ended up being a really great day and I'm so thankful for church friends to come to our little shindig.  My goal for the day was to enjoy some treats and be done with the sugar.

The kids jumped right into the games.

The boys face painting:

Ben painted Colin's face:

 

Alison, Aline and Alison:

Alison was the most excited about bobbing for apples.

Meredith and baby Katherine:

All the kids eating dinner:

 

So, remember how Fourth of July was HUGE in Michigan?  Yea, Halloween is HUGE in Arizona.  I did not know.  I was unprepared.  I thought our neighborhood would be quiet since there are no kids and our light was turned off.  Completely wrong.  All of the sudden, Eli came to me and said that he opened the door for some trick-or-treaters and gave them some tootsie rolls.  Then, all of the sudden, the kids were handing out all of our candy, plus the fruit snacks in our pantry, to the swarms of kids walking down the street.  SWARMS. When Ivan picked up Alison from the party, he said that he could barely get down our street and informed me that this is the neighborhood everyone comes to because it's safe and they give out good candy.  Yea for safe, not yea for swarms of kids coming to my dark house.  My Alison finally put a sign on the door saying we were out of candy.

All of our kids passing out candy: 

My other goal was to party instead of trick-or-treating but once they saw the massive amount of kids in the streets, it was too hard to resist.  So after a major safety talk, Brian took all the kids around the block and I enjoyed every minute of quiet while they were gone.  Colin came back and said, "Look at the candy I got!  AND I didn't get lost!"

The kids each got about 20 pieces of candy and spent the rest of the time sorting and trading candy.  It was enough to be fun and be gone quickly, so it still met my goal.

Tolson and Colin lined their candy up to count and compare:

 

All the kids:

The success for me came with Eli that night.  He struggles with talking, it's true and Brian will consistently try to draw him out.  Before trick-or-treating, Eli had to agree that he would talk if he went with Mr. White and he did.  Then, before leaving, Brian took his hand and asked him to look him in the eyes and asked if he would like to come to the station (he's a border patrol officer) and see all his weapons.  Eli answered him while looking in his eyes and when the door shut, Eli said, "I did it! Can I really go?!"  He was so proud of himself and I am so thankful to have people in our life that will help our kids in ways that we can't.

And, guess what?!  It's November!!!