Maybe I should title this post ‘Best Laid Plans’ because once again life got in the way of my oh-so-perfect Halloween plans. But I think our family rolled with the punches and had a pretty good time anyway. So here’s how our Halloween Weekend 2011 Extravaganza went:
Friday: John and I went to our neighbor’s annual party, John as a gangster and me as a ghost. Since Grandma Leigh came to visit we even got a free babysitter! As I’ve been writing a lot at work lately… No exceptions noted. (Ah, how my inner dork always finds a way to shine through and never lets me down).
Saturday: The perfect day planned. We were going to get up, have a great breakfast, get dressed in our costumes and head to our community clubhouse for a Halloween bash full of cupcake decorating, costume contests and confetti. Ok so I added the confetti part but let’s just say it was going to be glorious. First part of the morning – just as planned. A nice scrambled egg and toast breakfast for Sean and a bottle for Dylan. I’m even feeling extra lucky and go to Jazzercise. When I came back ONE HOUR later, chaos had set in. Sean was on the sofa with boogies coming out of his nose, he was crying, sneezing, coughing, you name it. He just wanted to watch TV and be miserable. It went downhill from there, we had to give him cold medicine and the poor kid fell asleep on the sofa (and if you know Sean this never happens). So my plans for the party went out the window quick. Now our only chance to get them in their costumes was actual Halloween night. Not good odds with a baby and a toddler.
Sunday: Sean seems to be doing much better. I, on the other hand, start to get a runny nose and sore throat. Score.
Monday: Halloween. I wake up like one of those zombies from the Thriller movie. I decide going to work isn’t an option and I scare Emmi when she shows up in the morning with my pathetic look and talks of everyone getting sick. I progressively get worse 
and see that Dylan’s starting to get a runny nose. I head to CVS to get nose mist, a nose suction thingy and tylenol for him. I can feel the excitement that it’s Halloween radiating everywhere except for our sick house. Evening arrives and John comes home to find us scrambling to get Sean and Dylan in their costumes while I try putting some makeup on so I don’t scare the kids. We end up getting just a few pictures before we have to take Dylan out of his costume – can you believe he barely fit into the 3-6 month velcro lobster? haha. But I have to say, sick and all, Sean and I got to go out trick-or-treating for his first official year and he loved it. 
He knocked on all the doors, said ‘Trick-or-Treat’ and ‘Thank You’ at each house. He loved watching all the kids running around in their costumes and begged me to go home and get the wagon so we could keep going! He got lots of candy which I think John and I should have polished off by Saturday. John and Dylan stayed home to hand out candy – they almost ran out which means a record number of kids for our street! So all in all, not as planned but turned out ok. In other words, exceptions noted however control environment appeared to operate effectively throughout the course of the day.
{Getting ready to head out // Leaving one of our neighbor’s houses after getting some candy looking so grown up}
{Showing Daddy all of his candy and relaxing to some Chuggington after a long night of trick-or-treating}
Tuesday: I’m surprised John could even stay in the house long enough to get ready with how sick I was. Dylan had boogies from ear to ear so we had to do a lot of suctioning. Sean - the one who started it all! - was feeling good and had only a small stuffy nose leftover from the cold. John was running around with his shirt over his nose and trying his best not to touch any of us :)
Wednesday: I finally head to work and Dylan seems to be getting better too. Whoa what a week!!
And that brings us to today. Aaaahh Thursday. The day before Friday. TGIF. Fingers crossed for a healthy and uneventful weekend ahead! And just as I write this John comes in and says ‘I think the cold is hitting me…’ RUN FOR THE HILLS!!
