...ain't nobody happy.

This is ever-so-true in our household. Iliya (Ilyusha) had a very busy night last night, trick-or-treating...a very busy day at school today (that included trick-or-treating), and we thought we would take him to church, tonight, for our small fall festival & some more trick/trunk-or-treating. We had a very tired & cranky child on our hands - not to mention the fact that he just hasn't felt well, lately. So our Halloween didn't end so happily. But I won't start there. Let me start with the happy stuff.

This weekend, we carved pumpkins. Here are some pics:






As you saw in my last post, my child was dressed as the cutest lion this side of the Mississippi River. When we tried the outfit on in the house, he didn't really like the hood on his head...but when he was outside of the house & presented with other distractions, he would forget about it - and actually seemed to enjoy wearing it! The thing he did NOT like was when I tried painting the whiskers & nose on his face. But aside from the costume being a little too warm, it as everything we had imagined it would be (and I got it on sale)!!

Every year, the sorority houses on campus sponsor a trick-or-treat night - it is open to the children of the community. Our niece, Nat, has gone the past couple of years, and we decided to join her (and some other friends) this year. The big night was last night, and it ended up being really fun! Since we live in a neighborhood where we do not know our neighbors - and most of our friends live so far apart - we knew we wouldn't be giving Iliya the fun door-to-door experiences we had as children. So this was the next best thing -- or perhaps just about as good as our old experiences. The sororitygirls were all very friendly, sweet, and had plenty of candy to give out. Several of the houses had set up games for the children; overall, it was a great setup. And there was a good turnout from the community - but not overwhelmingly crowded, which was nice.

At first - obviously - Iliya had no clue what we were doing. Before we got to the first house, he was perfectly content to just look at all the people, and crawl around on the grass. However, after I helped him open his bag for treats at the first house or two, he began to get the hang of what was going on. As an aside, when we went to the first house, the girls did not see him until he was right up to the steps. Then, all of the sudden, there was a collective squeal, "A lion!!!" and Iliya about jumped out of his skin. He was not expecting that! But after the initial scare, I guess he got used to the reaction, because we got it everywhere we went. And they gave him stuff, so I guess he figured they were okay. In fact, if an unsuspecting girl was bending down to place candy down in his bag, there was a good chance that he was going to reach into her bowl & grab his own handful of candy!





Iliya lasted about an hour last night (which I thought was pretty good!) before he started getting upset, so we decided to call it a night. But what a fun night!! Our very first trick-or-treating experience!

And today was the Halloween celebration at school. Since I am fortunate enough to work in the same building that houses Iliya's daycare, I was able to go trick-or-treating with him this morning -- and go to his little Halloween party this afternoon. The little ones (Iliya's age) in the daycare got to come down to our agency office suite to "trick-or-treat" from office to office. It was a little chaotic, but fun -- though I think I am definitely still viewing all of these experiences through the very new parent glasses. Here are pics from the morning (in costume) and afternoon (in regular clothes) -





And as I mentioned in the first part of this post, we went to the church fall festival tonight. The activities for the night included a chilidog supper, a devo, carnival games, and trunk-or-treat. We decided to wait until the trunk-or-treat to dress Iliya in his costume. It is fleece, and he would've burned up, had we gone ahead & put it on him.

In fact, we ate at church and then the child had a massive meltdown that he just never could recover from. We hadn't even put him in his costume, yet......but we reminded ourselves that he really is not used to such busy-ness & that we were not going to force him to be tired & miserable. So we told some very disappointed people (who had come to see Iliya in his costume) goodbye, and we loaded up in the car and went home.

I was a little disappointed that we hadn't been able to stay the whole time this evening. I wasn't sure that this night was going to have a very happy ending...but then the happiest part of Halloween happened after bathtime. A very sleepy, weepy child snuggled up tightly in my arms, as I sang to him and rocked him to sleep. Yes, a very happy ending, indeed.

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I will leave you with an apology for the length of this post...and to make up for it (or to make it longer?), a video. This is for those of you who really wanted to see Iliya "live & in action" in his costume. It wasn't shot this week - but a couple weeks ago. It's not good quality, but it captures "the waddle" perfectly. Watch the video & you'll see what I mean.


Happy Halloween!!