Our week-long Halloween

The kids got quite a lot of use out of their Halloween costumes this year. The Friday before Halloween, Casey's elementary school sponsored their Boogie Bash (which is basically your typical elementary school carnival). The kids wore their costumes to the event. After playing a couple games, eating some hot dogs and grabbing some churros to go, we headed back to the car. Just as Casey was buckled in and I was clicking the last part of Marcie's seat belt, Marcie told me she had to go to the bathroom.

"Can you hold it?" I asked. We only live a few blocks away from the school- probably less than two miles.

"No!" she shook her head as she adamantly shouted.

So I dragged the kids out of the car, and fortunately there was a group having an event in the multipurpose room at the middle school, near where we'd parked. They let us use the bathroom there.

After Marcie finished using the restroom, I was teasing her about how she likes to tour public bathrooms. I can't think of a single place we've been that she hasn't asked to use the restroom. I know where the bathrooms are at in our local grocery stores (all three), the Target, the Walmart, the Kohl's, the Costcos (both of them)-- you get the point. While I was teasing Marcie, Casey used the bathroom. And locked himself the toilet stall. Then couldn't get out.

I tried calmly talking Casey out. I told him where the lock was on the door (which of course he knew because he's locked it). I told him to pull hard. But then his whining turned into crying. So there was nothing more to do but crawl under the toilet stall. And, as luck would have it, this wasn't your typical school bathroom stall. These stall walls and doors were tall and low. I had to actually scoot on the floor on my back to get to Casey. (Yes, eww!)

The door was indeed jammed, and I got it unstuck. As I washed my hands, I thought about how quickly I could get home to change my clothes and wash the bathroom floor muck off my hair when Marcie called out from behind me. She had followed me under the bathroom stall wall (yes, eww!) and the door was closed and she said it was stuck!

No worries, though, it wasn't. She just was pushing instead of pulling to get out.

That Sunday, Casey was asked to attend his church faith formation class in costume-- dressed as a saint or angel. This totally irritated me. But then we started looking up saints, and it became kind of fun. Did you know Saint Patrick's shamrock is symbolic of the trinity? Each of the three leaves on the clover represents one of the elements-- father, son, holy spirit.

Anyway, I think we did a pretty good job. Here is Casey dressed as St. Patrick:

Next the kids each wore their costumes to their school Halloween parties. I attended Marcie's this year, and at one point I leaned in and whispered in her ear that I was leaving for work in five minutes. She burst immediately into tears! Apparently she let another mom hold her for a long time after I left because she was so upset. So I won't be visiting Miss Marcie in school for a while again.

On Halloween night, the kids got all dressed to go out again. Here's how I found Casey when it was finally time to go trick or treating:

Marcie and I woke him up, and here the kids are, all ready to head out to trick or treat:

The kids got a ton of candy. We let them each pick 5 pieces, then we told them we'd trade the rest for a toy each, and they agreed. Casey got some legos and Marcie got a Dora costume at the after-Halloween super-sale.