it's the most frightening time of the year

ken says his favorite holiday is halloween because there is no stress. now, i don't agree with that statement. we should revise it to say, "there is no stress FOR HIM." i do like halloween, but that hour of getting ready before trick-or-treat is one messy, stressful time for me.

make-up is flying all over the place (and not just on the girls), costumes are in a whirlwind on my bed, there's bags and candy and cameras and shoes and sippys and all the other little things that can't be forgotten.

and when we leave the house, it's a disaster. at least with holidays like christmas and easter, we have time to clean up the mess before the children wake up. so, granted, on halloween the stress is consolidated into one hour, unlike christmas, where the stress starts sometime well before thanksgiving. but there is still hours of clean-up to come home to on halloween night.

looking at my cute kids all dressed up in their costume makes the huge mess worth it (oh, and the bucketful of candy).


ellie was a pretty pretty cinderella princess. for trunk-or-treat earlier that week i tried to curl her hair in ringlets. unfortunately for me, though, her hair straightened. i learned my lesson, and saved myself the 1/2 hour of primping, and sprayed some water in her hair on halloween, and it dried with ringlet curls. lesson learned: let nature take it's course. she's beautiful enough.


ellie had a blast on halloween. the girl is a choco-holic, as is all of the members of this johnson family. she loved the idea of getting free candy, and frequently sneaks the candy from her bag when she thinks i'm not looking. little does she know that i have eyes in the back of my head.


ri had a fever on halloween, and ken was scared she had the flu (note to ken, we had the flu, and it was horrible, and we won't get it again this year. or we'd better not get another type of flu, because sickness is not allowed into our home for a very long time). so as i was saying, ken was scared she had the flu, and wanted me to stay home with her. heck not, not on halloween. so i insisted that we bring our little bug along.


i'm glad the bug came, because she was a blast. and that fever? turns out she had 5 teeth (3 of them molars) coming in all at the same time. poor girl.


abe was a fire super hero. we've never seen fantastic 4, so we really don't know the name of this guy, but abe was so excited to wear the burning hot muscles.


otho was a werewolf, with bulging biceps, he scared everyone with his costume.


the kids went out twice to trick-or-treat, and came home with WAY too much candy. i have a rule...they can eat as much as they want on hallween night, and even the next day. i was more strict this year and didn't let them eat as much though.


otho couldn't wait to dig into his bag. too bad for all that candy. it's going to the trash sooner than later. i just threw away two huge bags of last years hallween candy. the smells had all congealed into a sugary since one. eww. this year, i'll get rid of it much sooner. but maybe after i sneak another milky way.