Sunday night Ben looked at the forecast for this week and saw that temps would be hovering around freezing for Halloween and my immediate reaction was, I just can’t. And also, Yuck. Add in the fact that Truman started sporting a runny nose on Sunday and the fact that I am doing everything in my power NOT to get sick right now, I had a moment of momspiration, daring to ask him, “Do you think if we offer to get the kids pizza and let them each pick out a bag of candy to ‘trick-or-treat’ around the house for, they’d let us skip the actual door-to-door stuff?”

You see, we’ve been doing some offers like this lately and they’ve worked, so even though I didn’t think my odds were great, I was still hopeful. Last Friday night, for example, we were at the Y’s Family Halloween event, waiting in a rather long, fairly slow line (for which the kids were being patient rock stars, I might add) and our window of time left before we needed to bail for bedtime was dwindling. Problem was, we’d promised them one more game/activity after said long-line. Or that was the case until I threw out the notion of, “Hey, guys! How about you all get to eat one more piece of candy and then we’ll just go home?!” and they totally went for it and everyone was very, very happy, even though I had no idea how it actually worked.

This was exactly the same case Monday morning when we proposed the whole Family Halloween Party concept (plus going to the store to pick your own bag of candy each!) and they totally went for that, too! #WINNING is about all I can say because it would have taken all of .2 seconds for them to have denied it, too.

But wait. It gets better!

First of all, we already had in the works a “free” Halloween going, as all of the kids picked to either repeat last year’s costume or configure a homemade one out of stuff from the playroom. I’m sorry – does it get any easier than that?!

Turns out it does, because when B took the crew to the store yesterday after school to get their Top Picks of candy that he and I would then hand out to them tonight around the house, they picked the most comical selection ever:

That’s right. Two bags of suckers, some candy corn, and the smallest bag of pumpkins you’ve ever seen. LOL! Clearly they have no idea what an opportunity they squandered! And also, because I’m uber pregnant (and not a monster), I totally got myself a big old mix of chocolate choices this morning when I went to get some decorations for the house, because, hello! It’s not Halloween with Twix, tyvm.

But, yes. Because we got away with the stay-at-home option, I spent a little bit on balloons and streamers and glow sticks so we could do up the house in style and make the after school hours through bedtime super fun for them without freezing anyone in the process. I also looked up a bunch of activities and printables on Pinterest (and totally busted out the laminater this morning) so we could also do some sit down stuff after all the trick-or-treat/Hide-and-Seek + candy and pizza consumption.

And truth be told? It was fantastic.

Of course we missed being with our friends who always do a big group trick-or-treat run together here in town, but I think they all understood where we were coming from and know that we hope very much to be back with them next year (when hopefully parkas aren’t needed for the main event). But for this year, our little Family Night turned out to be just right, and the kids even got to hand out candy to the most trick-or-treaters we’ve ever had, so that was great, too. 

Oh! And a note about costumes…RL totally ditched her Ballerina Butterfly that she’s been planning on for weeks (and wore to the Y) and went with a mermaid dress up outfit instead (and eye shadow which thrilled her to no end because of how “creepy” it made her look – lol), and Truman literally wore one Wild Kratz glove, but whatevs. He was very TWO today, so I’m counting the fact that he did anything a win. Ben’s after school clothes turned him into a yoga teacher (*snort*) and I went from telling the kids I would wear my “fake hair” (i.e. my blond wig for my Xtina/Voice costume) to last minute ripping up a sheet to wrap about my torso and spreading purple eye shadow all over my face to become a MUMmy, which the kids freaking loved.

So somehow we won the dang lottery this year with Halloween and now I get to celebrate with just a few more Twix, because, I mean, really, while this was definitely the warmer option, it was still not without some effort, meaning this MUMmy earned that extra chocolate, for sure!