Halloween? Do I Have to?

You know, I'm so jealous of all you out there who have such talent with a camera. I follow several blogs and have several more friends (you know who you are) who have a gift with the lens-- the pictures you take are works of art! And some of you even have talent with Photoshop on top of that!!

We all can't be so photo-talented, I guess. I'm rather pathetic at it myself. In high school I took photography only to have my pictures come out so poorly that my teacher had to let me make up my grade by writing essays. Essays I can do. Artistic (or even focused) pictures? Not so much.

Anyway, documenting our family's various adventures has never been my strong suit, and it's gotten less so as my family has grown, since I'm more likely to need my hands or be running around distracted. So alas, I have no real record of our Halloween activities. Wait, I did get a picture of M and J before they went to school:

M is Hermione (from Harry Potter) and J is a lion.

Oh, and here is one of K licking up frosting at the ward party:

Hmm, I seem to be missing B. (Shh, don't tell her that. The sibling rivarly around here is fierce!) Well, hopefully my mom got a pic of her.

I always thought I would be one of those adults who would enjoy Halloween so much, throwing parties and wearing costumes and such. Then I grew up and became one of those boring, frazzled moms who secretly wish the holiday was over already. It's the candy, you see-- makes my kids wild and crazy to the nth degree (not to mention shorting out my own digestive system). Plus the plethora of activities that we just have to participate in. No leisurely trips to the pumpkin patch for us. No, we made a last minute trip to several stores at the last minute only to find at each store that they were out of pumpkins. By the time we found a roadside pumpkin patch that was still stocked, I was screeching at my children for every little thing and I rushed them through the pumpkin-choosing as quickly as possible. Maybe next year I'll get to that sooner.

Oh, well. We are taking today off though. As a family we made the decision to keep Sunday as the sabbath and not a holiday. So all our trick-or-treating and parties were yesterday and Friday. My kids seemed to enjoy themselves quite a bit-- and with the Primary program today, two more musical numbers for our special Relief Society meeting afterward and dinner at my parents' house, there is still much to look forward to (or get through, however you want to look at it).

However, I hope you all enjoy your Halloween and may your day be less stressful than mine! :-)