A Different Halloween

It has been an interesting Halloween. One we have never experienced together as a family before, and that's in a good way.

Lets see...

This time last year (ugh, my stomach turns thinking of it)... my husband was not living home and hadn't been living home for the past several months before that. Since June to be specific, so that would be four months of not living home.

I had the kids for Halloween and took them to a friends neighborhood. Every year they put on a haunted house in the garage, and all the kids come over to go in the haunted house. Let me tell you, this haunted house, although small, is very fun and scary for kids of all ages. I loved watching the kids all run around in their costumes, trick-or-treating around the homes and all that Halloween fun stuff. However, there was something missing about that Halloween night, we were missing a member of our pack. A teammate. It just wasn't complete.

The Halloween before that, I was very pregnant with my little girl. I took Hunter to our friends neighborhood again to do the haunted house and trick-or-treating. Mark sat home with a busted up face, from a softball accident he had and again we spent Halloween apart.

The Halloween before that, that puts us back in 2006, Mark and I weren't married yet (so weird to think of). However, we took Hunter, at the time five years old, Hunter-bunter to the trunk-n-treat our church put on for the thousands of kids in the surrounding area. It was a fun time. However, again, we didn't have Morgan with us (so to speak, as she was in my belly) Mark and I weren't yet married, so we were not yet "our" family that we are today.

Fast forward back to 2009 (a.k.a. the preset - ha. ha.), this is our Halloween experience.

As most of you know my kids have had H1N1 Flue (Swine). Hunter recovered from his pretty fast and is doing great. Back to all his activities and being a typical eight year old boy. Baby girl, although her test for H1N1 came back negative, we still treated her as if she had Swine Flu because she had been exposed to it, she was running a high fever and she had the symptoms of it. Keeping kids and myself locked up in the house for almost two weeks, I thought we were finally coming out of the "pigs pin" and over the "oink! oink! flu." And we probably are and have, except that Morgan for the last 2 1/2 days has been acting really fussy out of know where and running a small temp once yesterday morning. While also keeping us up all throughout the night on top of everything.

Trying to figure out if it is still flu stuff, her shots or teething. My guess it was her shots causing the fussiness and her low grade fever, as the doctor said that if the shot where to cause a fever it would be low grade and it would show up around ten days of the shot. Yesterday, exactly ten days from her shot. Go figure.

I went to Hunter's hockey game first thing in the morning. His team won, and he scored the first goal of the game, that I unfortunately didn't get to see, because I was late. That's what happens when you have no sleep what so ever the night before. I was tired. After the game, I go and get my nails polish changed from my 'Lincoln Park After Dark' fall color, to 'Waltz' a light natural color. Its part of my job description for my acting/modeling, natural looking nails. Shooting ten commercial for Toyota today, I had to have the clear nails for camera.

Anyways...

I go home, get baby girl dressed in her costume and I take her to trunk-n-treating at our church. Her first 'real' Halloween experience. This year Hunter had Halloween with his dad, but I was able to do his Halloween parade and class party at school on Friday, giving me a little bit of a Halloween day with him at least. Mark stayed home not feeling well himself, he has a bit of a head cold.

Before getting there (trunk-n-treat), I did paint Morgan's face and it looks adorable. Sadly, on the way there the sun hits her eyes in the car on the highway and trying to hide her eyes from the bright sunlight, she smeared her face paint all over the place. I get to church and I try to clean it up as best as I could with a wipe, saving the face design as much as possible. Then she poked herself in the eye before even getting out of the car and rubbed her face again. By this time I was getting really mad. Not that should be anything to get mad over, but I was. It was hot out, I was running around all day on NO SLEEP, and I NEED my sleep. I got mad and just took a wipe and wiped all the face paint off her face. After taking a deep breath, getting her out of the car and making our way to all the trunk-n-treat festivities, I then cool down my frustrations, see how cute she looks even without the face paint, and the start feeling guilty I even got so upset in the first place. It was just face paint after all! I just had to stop and whisper in her ear that I was sorry, and that I loved her and told her just how beautiful I thought she looked in her little fairy/butterfly outfit. And she did. Times like that I am so thankful they are so forgiving, knowing good and well she will get me back when in her teens. LOL.

After our time there, it was time to take a very worn out baby girl home. Thinking I wouldn't be the party pooper in our neighborhood, I purchased Halloween candy this year. Our neighborhood for some reason is not a very exciting neighborhood. The kids in the neighborhood don't hang out with each other. The adults don't socialize together and they don't take part in any holiday activities. Meaning no decorations or treats for Halloween for kids to enjoy. No Christmas lights or music. Nothing. So, I made sure I had candy for the treaties knocking on our door. Well, we only ended up having about eight kids total come to our door, and needless to say I still have a bunch of candy sitting in a big bowl next to my front door. Ugh!

Although, I have to admit I was a bit happy with the little amount of treaties we had, as I was SO tired, baby girl became miserable again and hubby was trying to relax and watch the Yankees game. I really needed to get to bed and get my eight hours of sleep because I had to get up early and go film ten Toyota commercials today. I attempt to get baby girl down, it wasn't happening. I take her into Hunters bed with me again, as we did the night before. Still wasn't having it. Finally, hubby came and got her and told me to get my sleep so I can function at my shoot.

I personally didn't think I was going to be able to sleep because I would be worried about baby girl. I was concerned how patient would he be with her if she kept him up all night. However, I ended up falling a sleep and making it through the night to wake up and see my baby girl snuggled up next to daddy in our bed. It was the cutest thing to see. Daddy said she watched the entire Yankees game with him and didn't go to sleep until almost 2AM. Whew...am I glad he took over. Although, he doesn't usually get up with her in the middle of the nights, he did good and came through for me last night so I could sleep. Thanks babe.

However, before I ended up going to bed, hubby was in the kitchen making himself a drink and he looked over at me and said "Happy Halloween Honey." I laughed and said "yea, aren't we exciting folks this Halloween." We both giggled in agreement.

Then I said "well, in truth, this really is the best Halloween we have had as a married couple and as a family. No hospitals, no injuries, no fighting, no living apart... just a happy little family having the best Halloween we can given our circumstances, and I will take that anytime over the past Halloweens we have had."

And it is true.

Although, we only had about eight trick-or-treaties come to our door and our neighborhood stinks with this stuff. Although, Hunter was with his dad on Halloween night. Although, we didn't dress up and make our own rounds to one fun Halloween part after another. Although, our little girl is sick and as fussy as an 18-month could be, as well, messed up her face paint on her face. Although, we were all lacking in sleep. Although, Mark did not feel well. It was indeed a different Halloween and a HAPPY Halloween year... for US!

I assumed we wouldn't do much Halloween this year with Morgan, therefore I never purchased her a new Halloween costume. Instead, I pulled out her costume from last year and went with it. I think it was a brilliant idea because it gave me a chance to compare and see how much my little fairy-butterfly has grown.

{Morgan 6 months and 18 months}

This is my Star Wars Clone. His costume did come with an actual mask, but for his school Halloween party he was not able to wear the mask to school. Which I think is silly. Have a Halloween parade and class party but not allow the kids to wear their mask with their costumes? What fun is that? Instead, we got creative and I just painted his face like his mask. Hunter was a bit nervous about having his face painted, but once he looked in the mirror he thought it looked so cool and said "awesome." On the way to school he asked me "how did you learn to paint faces, did you take a class?" I laughed and said "no, but I have had lots of practice, I practically paint my own face every day." He started laughing and said 'technically.' LOL

I posted more pictures on Facebook if you want to check them out. Click here to view, and you do NOT have to have a Facebook account to view the pictures. Enjoy!