The 31st

So the 31st is on a Sunday this year, which meant an overlap with church and costumes.  You can see that I wore my Vision costume once more - it's a super fun costume.  This morning was super fun too.

We had all kinds of games, plus our costume contest too.  The winner was a kid who came dressed as this:

It's a Jentezen Franklin Legacy Bible, one you can open up and read the first chapter of Genesis, or the first chapter of John.  Just to emphasize that it's the Sword of the Spirit, our costumed friend here has a Minecraft sword as well.  It was a perfect costume!

But there were a lot of costumes this morning, and that's what made it a fun day at KidPak.  We gave out a whole lot of candy!  Pastor Lance surprised me when we were out on stage, and all of the kids and volunteers were singing "Happy Birthday" to me, and after that I was getting all kinds of kind wishes the rest of the morning at church.  I got a card, and we had a cupcake party on top of that in the office.  It was a really nice birthday morning at church, the best kind when you're surrounded by friends and loved ones.

We came home, and Mom had chicken marsala for lunch, which she knows is my favorite of course.  And it was really delicious.  There were cupcakes at home, and gifts too, and after that, I carved a few more pumpkins!  We watched a few movies, including "Zootopia," while I got busy finishing up two more pumpkins.  

This first one Josh had designed.  He drew this pumpkin on the birthday card this morning, and I thought why not actually carve that same idea out on an actual pumpkin?  So I did.  It was a quick and easy carving, given that the design was simple and already created.  This other pumpkin below though?  I started carving yesterday, and only finished it this afternoon. 

I like the idea of a Celtic cross on a pumpkin.  I wanted to have this ready for KidPak this morning, but it was just a lot of work, and given all the chaos of the morning, I'm not sure if it would have lasted through the morning anyway.  It looked great on the porch tonight, and it looked great lit up as you can see in the picture above.  

The Wellborn family came over, but so did a few of Maddie's friends from school tonight.  That meant it was time for us all to head out for some trick-or-treating.  Maddie was dressed up as Wanda Maximoff all day long, in church and as she got ready to go out into the neighborhood.

So yes, we had a bit of a theme going on, a bit of WandaVision on the front porch.  I want to add two things here:  I love capes.  I know Edna Mode might not approve, but it was fun having a cape on.  Secondly, that scarecrow that my parents made is pretty amazing.  It's meant to look like the one from the second "Goosebumps" movie, and they did a fantastic job with it.

Mom took up her position at the front porch, and you can see all our pumpkins lined up there, along with the black cauldron filled with candy.  That would be nearly empty by the end of the night, of course.  But we brought back enough candy when we were done for us to refill the thing, so it all evens out!

We were out and about after that, walking the usual path through our neighborhood, and it was so great to see so many people out there.  Once we made the turn off this street above and down Forest Path, the neighborhood was packed with trick-or-treaters of all sizes, and enthusiastic home owners greeting each one with lots of candy and smiles.  The bonfires were out, the decorations all over.  Halloween decorations rival that of Christmas ones in this neighborhood, with new cemeteries popping up in front yards, along with orange and purple lights, dry ice, mysterious and creepy music, skeletons climbing up houses, and all kinds of spooky decor.

Here's the group beforehand, ready to head out.  Maddie and her friends had a wonderful time, and all the kids came back with so much candy.  I even had a little bucket with me, and I had a good bit of candy in there, much of it I brought back for Nana as a treat to enjoy.

It was a fun night.  Maddie enjoyed her time with friends, and although she's getting older, she can still head out and have a good time.  I wasn't needed to watch over the kids so much, so I myself got to take a deep breath.  It was like Vision himself, walking on alone through the neighborhood and looking around at the festivities in that one Halloween-themed episode.  It was just nice getting to stop and look around and take in this rare and wonderful atmosphere.  All around, kids screaming and running from house to house to get candy, lights and music everywhere, full families walking along together in the twilight.  I saw a family of "The Incredibles" that looked amazing.  And then there were three large inflatable pigs - the Three Little Pigs.  Closely followed by the Big Bad Wolf, of course.  We didn't run into anyone terribly gory or scary, and everyone behaved tonight, so that's good as well.  It was just a beautiful night too.  The rain was constant the last few days, and to clear up tonight as special.  There weren't any clouds in the sky - just beautiful stars peeping out early while the sun set slowly.  The weather was cool, but nothing like a few years ago where jackets were covering up some of the costumes.  It was a perfect evening for a stroll, a perfectly enjoyable moment.

I came back home earlier than the rest.  Mom wasn't feeling great, so I was able to take her place with porch duty.  She made me a delicious hot chocolate in my favorite mug, it's one that had the Mayor of Halloweentown on it.  Again, I sat there and breathed in the atmosphere of this special night.  It was a blessing.

As Halloween wound down, the returning adventurers came back with vast amounts of candy treasure, diving into the warmth of our house and gloating over this bit of candy or that.  There was enough to share, although truth be told, everyone was eating enough candy along the way.  There were plenty of empty candy wrappers in their trick-or-treat bags and pumpkins, evidence of all the sugar that's been consumed along the way.

We watched our KidPak movie together again, the one we've been filming these past few weeks.  It came out great, a sort of horror movie with Putnam as the star.  Putnam himself was with us at home, watching as well.  The video is so much fun - we watched it earlier today in the service, and then again when we got home this afternoon, and once more with friends tonight at the house.

But soon it was time to get home for the others, and of course tomorrow is a school day, so we did have to get to bed early for that as well.  Everyone was pretty tired from the walking and the extremely full day.  But it was a great day today.  I had hoped I would have the birthday present of a World Series victory for the Braves... but they lost tonight at home.  They are still up three games to two, and all they have to do is win one more game here.  We've been in that situation before, but at the same time, we've won in that same scenario.  And there's this feeling about this team that we can in fact do it.  We'll see what happens as the week goes on, but that's the one thing I asked for with my birthday, and hopefully I'll get that this year!

We said our prayers tonight, and we did our reading too.  And we were asleep fairly quickly after that, given the long, full, wonderful day.