While reading a book to the boys this week, I had to stop and show them the text to explain that when a character said he "liked" having a dog drooling all over him, he really meant the opposite. We talked about this for a bit, coming up with other examples, and then moved on with the story.

Fast forward to this afternoon: Waiting for our check-out paperwork at the doctor's office the boys started to sword fight with the pens attached to the desk by chains. I said firmly, "Put the pens down now and don't touch them again." Daniel promptly picked his back up and started again. "Daniel, you have lost your dessert for the rest of the day." I practically had to carry him out as he wailed at the unfairness of it all, "You didn't say there would be a punishment!"

He screamed all the way home (thankfully it's only 5 minutes) and as we were pulling into the driveway I heard from the back seat, "OK, I really did know there would be a punishment."

This level of self-awareness was quite shocking, but still, I said, "Well I'm glad to hear you say that."

"NO!" he screamed. "I was using AIR QUOTES!"

Edward has been thinking about vampires a lot. He has worked out the answers to two of the most pressing vampire questions.
Why are vampires pale? Well, you know Vlad the Impaler was the first vampire. Get it? Im-PALE-r. If he'd been Vlad the In-red-er then vampires would have been red. (Direct quote at 7 a.m. today.)
Why do vampires live in Transylvania? Tran-syl-VEIN-ia--they get blood from veins.

Daniel's costume morphed from generic ninja to Jay the blue Ninjago ninja when I sent him to get dressed and he discovered he didn't actually have any black pants. When I suggested blue would work just as well, it was like a light bulb went on and he said, "Yeah, I could be Jay the blue Ninjago. But do we have any nunchucks? I need nunchucks." This is at 4 p.m. on Halloween afternoon. Luckily he is simple enough to be quite pleased and satisfied with toilet paper roll nunchucks. He didn't even feel the need to color them or in any way try to disguise that they were toilet paper rolls.

On our trick-or-treat route we came upon a Little Free Library that we hadn't seen before. So that's how we ended up with a book as part of our loot. Along with LOTS of candy. I read a few Facebook posts about the "switch witch" coming to people's houses to trade the candy for a toy. I wasn't sure how this would go over in our house, but when I told the kids about the witch, they seemed disappointed that they'd missed their chance to have her stop at our house on Halloween night. I said I knew it wouldn't be the same thing, but if they wanted, I would trade them their candy for a toy. We decided they could each keep 20 pieces and they'd trade the rest. Wow! I can't believe that worked!

The school Halloween celebration was Friday, Nov. 1, which was a great idea. School party plus trick-or-treat is a bit much. This is the only year both boys will participate in the costume parade at their elementary school. Only K-2 students parade and the rest of the school watches the parade. Unfortunately it was raining so they were restricted to a hallway parade. But that didn't diminish the excitement and enthusiasm.

Opted for the knight costume at school b/c the ninja hat
would have been too hot.

Pretty sure the only reason he wanted to be a vampire
was to be able to wear the teeth at school.

And of course, before any of this can happen, there must be pumpkin carving.

Scooping out the guts

Daniel drew a spine on his jack-o-lantern.

Edward's design was far too complex for our carving skills.
He was happy to draw what we couldn't/wouldn't carve.

Another Halloween in the books.