Up to God and Back: Happy Halloween!

Halloween seemed to go on forever this year!!! Halloween was on a Friday (a weekend here in Qatar) and the boys didn't have school on Thursday for parent teacher conferences, so they had the Halloween parties on Tuesday! The boys wore their costumes to school and I was at school all day for their parties. Jaden's party was in the morning and we played some minute to win it games, decorated cookies, made lollipop ghosts and monster faces, played a would you rather game, and ended with snacks. It was loads of fun!!! Wish I had pictures, but I was too busy with the activities to take any.

After cleaning up, I headed over to Nicholas' class to help set up his party. His teacher had 7 stations around the room for the kids to play ... so fun! Ghost bowling, pin the tail on the black cat, monster hands, pumpkin faces, cookie decorating, lollipop ghosts, and bat blood punch. I couldn't believe how much stuff she had for Halloween!! Made my job as room parent crazy easy!!! But again, I was too busy with the party to take any pictures. :-(

After the class parties, I had to take Jaden back to the hospital to get his cast taken off. A better prepared mom would have brought a change of clothes, but I forgot. So I took them in costume!! And boy did we get a lot of attention!! Halloween is not a holiday in Qatar, so we had a lot of people staring at us wondering why on earth my children were dressed as a black spider and black panther. Oh well!!

Did I mention their costumes?? Nicholas wanted to be a spider this year and we were both excited to find out that a friend had a spider costume we could borrow! It was a bit big on Nicholas, but he loved that the spider arms moved up and down with his arms. It was perfect!!

And as always, Jaden had a terrible time deciding what to be this year. That poor kid has the hardest time making decisions!!! To help him with inspiration, I found a party store with quite a few costumes ... he circled the store 4 times and still nothing!!! I was starting to lose my patience when I saw a mask of a zebra and a black cat. Jaden has been into cheetahs and big cats lately, so I snatched up the black cat mask and convinced him to be a black panther! He was sold! Thank God!!!

They wore their costumes to school on Tuesday and again on Thursday night for the Halloween festival hosted by their school. They do a really good job with this event ... there's a trick or treating lane, haunted houses, loads of carnival games, bouncy castles, and pizza and snow cones for snacks. Jaden & Nicholas especially loved the haunted house this year! So fun!!!

And the final event was Friday with trick or treating around the compound with a little pre-party at the clubhouse.

All in all, they got to wear their costumes 3 times! Unfortunately it was still super warm the week of Halloween and their costumes were warm, so they were a hot sweaty mess all week. After trick or treating at our compound on Friday, we were cutting through the clubhouse to enjoy a bit of AC on our way back home. I opened the door and Nicholas immediately fell to the floor, spread out on the cool tiles, and says, "AAAAHHHH!" He's too funny! But it was hot that night!