Halloween...and Cigarettes

Our Halloween festivities began on the Thursday before with Alden's party at school. I was on point to help plan it, and got to go early for the festivities. One of the mom's brought brownies and apple slices for snack, and we had some fun crafts to do. The highlight of Halloween at GFCC is the parade in the parking lot. All the kids walk around in a circle and the parents come and take pictures. Alden and her class looked so cute!After school, we stopped by Bebe and Pop pop's church to get pumpkins.

Matt and Alden carved our pumpkins on Friday. They went with a nautical theme...a shark, of course, which seems to be Alden's subject of choice when it comes to artistic expression, and a really good pirate. Arrrgh.
Hudson watched and ate cake.
I had to work Friday night, and came home and slept a couple hours on Saturday. We wanted to go to the Cary Band Day parade, but it was a little drizzly and gross, so we just planned on going a little late. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the parade had just ended ( I think they had some cancellations), so we went to the mall.

Alden and Hudson rode the merry-go-round, played with Thomas, and ran around the play place and we ate at Chick-Fil-A...all the typical mall things.

After nap, we headed over to Bebe and Pop pop's for dinner. Matt and Alden carved their pumpkin (a pirate ship). Alden was helping me ice cupcakes, and as soon as she saw Matt get the pumpkin stuff out she says, "Um, I am done helping you, Mommy. I'm gonna help Daddy do the pumpkin." Ouch.

The night was really muggy, but we forged out into the humidity all costumed and ready to go. Alden was Cinderella and Hudson was a cow. Overall, Hudson had a much better time than Alden. He loved going up to the houses and grabbing candy out of the bowls. Alden pooped out after about 8 houses...Amber was carrying her, and Alden says, "I'm tired of trick-or-treating. My bucket's full. Let's go back." And just like that, Halloween was over. We reaped much less candy than we did last year. Probably a good thing, since Matt and I eat most of it anyway.

As an aside, Alden has been a little obsessed with cigarettes lately. She and Bebe walked down the greenway to the park one day, and saw some girls smoking, and later, some cigarettes on the ground. Alden talks about it all the time, and how "they are bad for you...make you cough...make your tummy hurt." Well, the other day, we were going to the park to meet Armen and Lucy and Alden observed that it was starting to get dark..."All the cigarettes are going to go home and eat dinner and go to sleep." What?!?!?!? So we had to have a lesson about how cigarettes aren't alive. "They are just paper with stuff rolled up inside," I told her. Then, she busts out with "Next year, for Halloween, I'm going to be a cigarette." What?!?!?

This past weekend, when we were talking with Amber, Alden was telling her all about the cigarettes on the greenway episode and since she can't say "sm" very well, was saying she and Bebe "pelled the poke." We laughed about that for a while. She then explained to Amber about how they were just rolled up paper. Amber was a little surprised when Alden started talking about rolling papers. And I meant it to be an educational explanation.