Boo!

The 31st was quite a busy day at our house. A and I had the school field trip during the day and the time after school also proved to be action-packed. A insisted that we carve the tiny pumpkin that he picked out at the farm; while it was easy to remove the small amount of seeds and pumpkin goo, it was tough to carve something that small. Somehow I managed to cut out two eyes and a toothy grin without severing any fingers, but we soon learned that we had to tilt the lid in order to give the candle enough air to stay lit.



A masterpiece, it is not.

We put on A's costume and headed over to our local Publix grocery store, which had treats for the children. A received quite a lot of candy from three different stations within the store and delighted several shoppers with his super hero poses.

Then we went over to the Tae Kwan Do school, which was having a Halloween party for each class. It was quite funny to see Mr. Gable and Master Shim wearing costumes! J had been sent home from work early, so he came directly to the school, which was a nice surprise. Mr. Gable and Master Shim played games with the costumed students (yay - burn off that sugar!) and then handed each child a goodie bag. We were already loaded with candy at this point, and trick or treating in the neighborhood was yet to come.

After a quick dinner, we headed out for trick or treating in the neighborhood. It was still light out, but we could not wait for dark and keep A on any kind of an evening schedule. We had a good time going to the various houses out on the main road in our subdivision and it was completely dark by the time we finished. We had no trick or treaters on our cul-de-sac, down from last year's high number of one.

We let A survey his haul (quite large) and eat a piece or two of candy before getting his bath, brushing his teeth VERY WELL and going to bed. He was exhausted from his busy day and crawled into bed only 15 minutes later than usual. All in all, it was a good day for Captain Heartbreaker and his entourage.

Down on the farm, part 2

On Halloween, I went with A's kindergarten class on a field trip to Minter's Farm, where we went to Inman Farm Heritage Days back in September (see "Down on the farm" - 17 September). It was a beautiful fall day and all five kindergarten classes from the elementary school were very excited to be out of the classroom.

There were five parents total from A's class, so with the teacher and the para professional, we had seven adults for the 16 students in Mrs. G's class. All in all, they were fairly well-behaved; they were just energetic and keeping them in line was akin to herding cats. Giggling, talking, squirming cats.

We went inside a log cabin , known as Miss Quinnie's cabin, which is an original 1870s log home. Mr. Minter told the students how two sisters lived in that tiny cabin (maybe 12' x 12' total?) their entire lives, cooked their meals using the fireplace and had no indoor plumbing or electricity. Then the children made a simple corn husk doll, picked cotton, ground corn with a hand-cranked grist mill to feed the chickens, cows and donkeys, went on a hayride, picked out a small pumpkin to take home, and helped to make, as a class, a hand-twisted rope to take back to the classroom. Then we unpacked our bag lunches and ate outdoors. One of the moms had made Halloween cupcakes, which we enjoyed.

Once all five classes had finished all the activities, they loaded back onto the buses and drove back to school. I drove home and put up my feet when I got in the house! It was great fun, but four hours of farm fun with five and six year olds had me a bit tired, but also appreciating my indoor plumbing and electricity.