Halloween fun

Stacey and I kept pretty busy over the last couple of weeks. The ballet teacher who teaches after Stacey's Hip Hop class invited her to stay and "audit" the ballet class for two weeks in a row now.

I'd like to have Stacey in more than one dance class, like most of the other kids are, but things are very touchy right now between me and Stacey's mom. I feel as though everything I do right now regarding Stacey is under greater than usual scrutiny, so new classes will have to wait until things settle down. For now, auditing the class a couple of times and seeing the teacher and getting some refresher ballet information will have to do. When she was 4, I signed her up for a ballet class, and that went pretty well. She had one recital, and then we stopped, for reasons I can't remember.

Stacey had a spur-of-the-moment sleepover on Friday the 20th. Taylor and Krissy's mom and dad helped get the gang to dinner and back to my house, for which I'm most grateful, as there were 7 kids total, and I don't have a van... yet. In attendance were Taylor and Krissy (of course), Shayley, Hayley, Tara, and Sophia. They had a lot of fun, made a lot of noise, and ate all my food the next morning. I've always said one of the house rules for Stacey's friends is "nobody leaves hungry", but I had a hard time pulling that off. I made my usual triangle omelettes, some with ham and cheese, some just with cheese, and a few stacks of waffles. Everything got eaten, and I had to fry up all my bacon, and go borrow a couple eggs from a neighbor to make more waffles. Very harrowing experience. Last year I had a gaggle of girls over for a night, and they didn't go through half as much food. They all must be hitting their growth spurts.

This last weekend, Stacey was invited to a Halloween party thrown by Meghan's dad. He rented out his condo associations community building for the evening, had decorations, prizes, etc. He showed some poor judgment regarding pumpkin carving, though. He ran out and purchased pumpkins at the last minute, and found out that all the grocery stores were out of carving kits, so he bought some steak knives and pairing knives instead, intending to give them to little kids who were up late at night and all sugared up.

Needless to say, I jumped in, as did Meghan's mom, and kept the kids from getting hurt. I think I cut the tops off of about 7 pumpkins in as many minutes. The kids then hollowed out the pumpkins, and used pens to draw the designs they wanted cut out, and the adults then went about butchering their designs. That was the only questionable item, though; everything else went off smoothly. There was bobbing for apples, various off the cuff party games (guess how many pieces of candy are in the jar, a musical chairs derivative, etc.), and the community center had a pool, so everyone went swimming when they were too wired to play games.

Prior to the party, Stacey and I had embarked on our own pumpkin carving adventure. I am usually a traditionalist, just eyeballing a standard Jack-O-Lantern face with big triangles for a nose and eyes, but this year we bought a kit. She chose a pattern that had a bat flying with a Jack-O-Lantern in its claws, and I chose one of a spider. They turned out pretty good, and I think after using the little tools the kit provided within a couple days of using a steak knife to do some carving, that I prefer the tiny saws and the stencil patterns. I've been converted.

And tonight, of course, is Beggar's Night. Stacey and I went shopping for her costume last week, and picked out a traditional witch outfit, complete with latex nose and green makeup. We will be strolling the neighborhood with a group of her friends, and hopefully more parents.