Never A Dull Moment

I have been incredibly busy the past few days... all self-imposed projects. I feel like I have ADHD.

Rob and I tiled our master bathroom floor, hung wainscoting on the walls, painted, redid plumbing, installed new toilet and sink, redid electrical and installed new light fixture. There are a few finishing touches left, i.e. the crown molding, wainscoting cap, medicine cabinet, and then more painting (oh yea!), but then the room will be completely done.

I completely cleaned out two of my children's bedrooms to include rearranging the furniture, washing the draperies, and scrubbing the walls where someone decided to color on them. The children in these two rooms are packrats and the condition of the rooms was nothing short of disgusting.

But now after untold hours, countless boxes of crap brought to the attic that I was not allowed to throw away, several bags of garbage I manage to sneak by them, and quite a few expletives, the rooms look great.

My eldest son is finally feeling better. I was beginning to worry that the antibiotic was not working well enough or that he did have a tonsillar abscess. The ped had mentioned it as a possibility, albeit a rare one, and said if he wasn't able to open his mouth fully in a few days and eat normally that we would need to see an ENT about having it drained. Oh what fun that would be... a needle hating kid with an extreme gag reflex having a huge needle down his throat to drain this thing. He would really be traumatized by the experience, as I am sure I would be as well.

But as he gets better, there is always someone to take the place as the sick one. This time my 8 yr old and 4 yr old are vying for the position. The 4 yr old began screaming after dinner tonight that his ear hurt, and he screamed and screamed until finally the Motrin kicked in. He has never had an ear infection before, but with the hacking cough he has had this week it wouldn't surprise me if this was the first.

My 8 yr old is complaining that his throat hurts on one side, and if we are going to the dr for the 4 yr old I might as well have him seen too.

And while I am at it, I may as well just have Rob's entire paycheck directly deposited into the pediatrician's bank account. Because once we all step into that petri dish otherwise known as the waiting room, we'll be back. And back. And back again.

Black Friday

it sounds so ominous doesn't it?

Luckily I had no shopping to do, since I am done. I know I can't help rubbing it in ;-)

But I did have to take my 10 yr old to the dr this morning. All the kids have been fighting colds, but his has been getting progressively worse and he has complained the past few days of a sore throat and jaw. This morning he was unable to open his mouth wide enough to eat his oatmeal. Turns out the poor kid has tonsillitis.

So for the second time in his entire life he is on an antibiotic, first time was last year when ALL the kids had strep at the same time... and of course they ALL had their own bottles of the pink stuff. That was fun.

Later in the day, Rob and I put down the new tile floor in our master bathroom. We decided against the vinyl flooring and put down ceramic tile instead. Tomorrow we're going to hang wainscoting on the walls, hang the crown molding, paint the wainscoting, and grout the tile. Hopefully Sunday we will have the toilet and sink back in place. These projects always seem to get bigger and bigger once you begin.

I am happy to report that our Thanksgiving was nicer than expected... no one had anything remotely offensive to say and there were several food choices that were recognizable and yummy, like the traditional baked ziti dish. You know the one that the Italian Pilgrims ate.

Seeing Rob's 20 yr old niece made me thankful that I never have to go back and relive those years again. Though I am fairly certain I was not such an oppositional know-it-all.

But all in all it was an enjoyable time.

But the best thing about today is that there are still two more days left of the weekend to get things done. I am 36 weeks pregnant today... I have had my all my babies between 37 weeks and 38 weeks 2 days, so not much cooking time left. But I already told Rob I refuse to have this baby until my baby daughter's room is finished and the master bathroom is done.

The baby may end up going to kindergarten in utero, but so be it.

Update On Many Things

Monday I had the building inspector out to our house to examine our screened in porch. He said that even though he can not determine what caused the joists to pull away from the beam, they should not have been merely nailed to the support beam. To him that is reason enough for the contractor to come back and fix it.

So he is sending him a letter telling him as much. I guess we will see what happens now.

Yesterday I had a prenatal check-up. Everything is going well. Managed to gain 5 pounds in the past 3 weeks... oh joy.

And on to Thanksgiving...

Today I am trying to scrounge up dress up clothes for the kids to wear to Thanksgiving dinner at my SIL's house. Not actual dress up clothes in the sense that my children mean, though I am thinking that might be really fun to have goblins, bees, cowboys and the like at the Thanksgiving table.

Dinner is always an interesting affair at her house, both because of the foods that will be served which bear no resemblance to their original forms and the conversations. All our vegetables will be cooked into unrecognizable oblivion, smothered in Velveeta, ritz crackers or some other not-really-a-food item, but that is nice because who really likes vegetables anyway.

Our cranberry sauce will still be shaped like the can, which is nice because we can use the can grooves as the markings to cut our cranberry sauce into perfect disk shapes. The gravy will come out of a can or jar, which is nice because it will contain artificial colors, flavors, and MSG, and I don't think we get enough of those in our diet regularly.

The turkey will have been cooked a really long time, but that is okay because if you only turn the oven up to 150 degrees it takes a long time to cook, and it really is nice because it is like playing Russian roulette... will we or will we not come down with salmonella, e-coli, or some other generic food poisoning from eating food improperly handled.

And the kids will eat in a separate room, which is nice because who wants to spend time with them while they are eating.

And then there are the engaging conversations to partake in. We will talk about homeschooling and how damaging it is, how kids need to go to school and socialize, and hear about the latest case where some "homeschooling" family abused their kids, ofcourse it will all be qualified with "well not that you are like this". But it is nice because I will be able to practice my deep breathing relaxation techniques and going to my happy place while I nod and smile and try not to say any one of the offensive things that are struggling to come out of my mouth.

If I am lucky someone might decide to quiz my children on something they think the kids should know. But if I am even luckier, my children will be too distracted by the huge television playing completely inappropriate tv shows the entire time we are there. But that is nice because I don't think my children are exposed to enough gratuitous sex and violence.

And we'll talk about how small and thin my baby is and how I really should have given her formula. And how I have hopefully come to my senses and will give the new baby formula and cereal from one month on.

And when the blood starts oozing out of my mouth from biting my tongue, that will mean it is time for pie! bought at the grocery store, with whipped cream on the top that comes out of a squirt can. Yum, pie! in it's hermetically sealed package ladened with preservatives.

And you want to know the scary thing about it? My family would probably be even more fun.

Anyone else have such fun-filled family times awaiting them tomorrow, or am I the only lucky one ;-)

Don't Hate Me...

but I am done with my Christmas shopping. D-O-N-E.

And 90% of it is wrapped. Yea me!

The 10% that is not wrapped is ordered and due to arrive this week.

This past weekend was my annual weekend away with a friend of mine. We spend two days shopping with no kids, eating out at restaurants with no kids, and stay overnight in a hotel with no kids to wrap the gifts. Did I mention we leave the kids home?

Usually I don't get as many presents wrapped as I did this year, but my friend took pity on her poor pregnant friend and decided to help me. Her kids are older and want things like gift certificates to clothing stores and electronics, both of which are small and much quicker to wrap.

Meanwhile, I had to enlist the help of two bellmen and their carts to get all the stuff I bought up to our room. Stuff that I will most likely be cursing about a few months from now when it is strewn all over my house.

But for now I am just going to revel in the fact that I am D-O-N-E with the shopping.

What A Save

Tonight we celebrated my youngest son's fourth birthday.

He wanted a carrot cake from the grocery store with the icing shaped carrots on top. So Rob stopped at the grocery store on his way home from work to buy the cake and candles.

We got ready to have cake and got the candles out of the bag. One of the older children held up the number and said, 'Dad, Why did you buy a number three?'

Rob and I froze and looked at each other. This was potentially catastrophic.

But quick thinking that he is, Rob said,'Of course it is a three. It is because he used to be three.'

The older children looked at Rob like he had lost his mind and I shot them all the "look" to convey to them the importance of keeping their mouths shut or face grave personal danger. The birthday boy took it in stride. Tantrum averted. We breathed a sigh of relief and ate cake.

Should I Wear a Post-It Note On My Belly?

because apparently my enormous belly in and of itself does not cause my husband to remember that we are having a baby soon.

Today he phoned from work to tell me about a business trip he was going to take mid-December.

At first I thought he was joking, since we are having a baby in December.

But as he talked on I realized that he had forgotten that we are having a baby. He says he didn't forget, that it slipped his mind. That sounds much better doesn't it? Much more passive. it slipped out of his mind, purely out of his control.

But I'd love to hear the gossip 'round the water cooler when his boss gets his email saying he can't make the trip because the fact we are having a baby slipped out of his mind.

I Don't Have Enough Flat Surfaces...

More tsotchkes than one mother deserves to have to dust...

And to think I only paid $600 for them all...

Who needs food when you can have art...




I present the results of my children's 8 week long pottery class.


Missing from the photo are face masks made by 2 of the children, and a "set" of eleven (?!?)matching mugs which still needed to be fired. (Please note the terms "matching" and "mugs" are used loosely here.)


And lest I give you the impression that this is the only art in our house, I present the fireplace mantle in our dining room. (Please note I did not choose this wall color, it came with the house)

Here we have Lego Yoda, who is still sporting remnants of his Halloween attire, caterpillars made from egg cartons, butterflies made from coffee filters and pipe cleaners, some beans and seeds attractively glued to plastic dishes, and a Lego creation that was deemed worthy of display by it's maker.






Who says we don't have art in this house?

Cause Of My Breakdown

Good thing we paid all that money to have it done to code. Looks really safe, huh?

I was wrong in my earlier post, the porch is not pulling away from the house. The front support beam that holds up the entire front of the porch and supports the roof has pulled away from the joists and rest of the porch. Basically the entire front of the porch is being held up by the very end bits of those nails.

If I weren't pregnant I'd be drinking a strong alcoholic drink right now. Someone do it for me... please.

Feeling Sick

This morning I got a phone call from our contractor. He wanted to "stop over our house and pick up the money we owe him". Huh? The work isn't finished yet. I had asked Rob to call and deal with this, but he was away last week and had not yet gotten around to calling.

We only owe him $1400, which is unfortunately a very small percentage of what the project from hell has cost us. So it isn't like he paid for a bunch of materials and needs to pay those bills. This $1400 is purely money in his pocket.

Anyway, Rob was still home and I put him on the phone to deal with the contractor.

Now here is the sickening part. He tells Rob that when he was at our house last week he noticed that the porch is pulling away from the house. And that it is all *my* fault. I said I would do all the painting and seal the flooring. Well, I did the painting, but just never got around to doing the sealing.

He said that is the cause of the porch failing. His reasoning is that as it got colder the floor boards expanded from the moisture. Huh?

1) The porch was built during the height of the humid summer. Therefore I would imagine the boards have contracted, not expanded as the humidity has decreased and the weather turned colder.

2) I would think that the strongest place of the porch would be where the decking is attached to the house. If the boards had expanded so rapidly during this moisture ridden cold weather wouldn't they buckle themselves before pulling the huge support beam off the house?

3) There are no gaps in the flooring to indicate any sort shrinkage or expansion.

4) It is a covered porch so there is no direct contact with water, his theory is based purely on the humidity levels in the air.


I feel physically ill over this whole thing. In my hormonal pregnant state I can't stop crying and of course I am having more contractions from the stress.

And I am SO going outside and tearing the sign down now.

The Weather Outside Is Frightful...

This was the view outside today.

The kids were thrilled. I was not as thrilled.

How long until summer?

Pause

At the 11th hour, on the 11th day of the 11th month, we remember...

I remember as a child that veterans all seemed so old and from wars fought so long ago. It was something from the past. I wish I could say the same things now.

Where I used to see old men I now see boys, boys closer in age to my sons.

Happpy Veteran's Day to all the veterans out there, my husband included.

Ten Years Ago Today

I became a mother. Although I knew it would be a life changing moment, I was not prepared for the fierce love I felt for this little person whom I had just met. Within moments of his birth I would have traded my life for his.




We brought him home from the hospital, carried him into the house, and looked at him sitting there in his carseat. Whoa, they let us bring him home. There wasn't any "real" parents coming to take over. We were them. We were the ones who were supposed to know everything.

He is the one who shaped me into a mother from a self centered college student. He is the one who continues to shape me and mold me. I make all the mistakes on him, my first born, my practice child. The subsequent children have it so much easier.



He is the one who taught me that a lack of sleep will not kill you, it will only feel like death.

And if you look closely at the photo above, he also taught me that a white couch is NOT child friendly no matter what the salesperson tells you about it's cleanability and durability.

And so my beautiful son, today you reach the coveted double digits. I am so happy you are mine.



And no, you will not be getting the $80 "colorful" snowpants and $350 skis for your birthday. Let it go already.

Good News

I am not bipolar and and in the midst of a manic phase. Phew, I was beginning to get a bit worried ;-)

Today I had nary an urge to clean anything. Right now I am successfully ignoring all my non perishable groceries that are piled all over the table and the breakfast dishes. More good news is that I spent the requisite gazillion dollars at the grocery store this month and now can get a free Thanksgiving turkey. Okay, maybe not quite that much money, but it was a surprisingly large amount to get a turkey.

After the I picked my older children up from pottery class we headed over to Home Depot. I am not sure why I keep torturing myself by bringing a three year old in there. Do they really think that they can leave ladders in the aisles and not have kids climb them?

When it came time to check out the cashier had to call the credit card company to make sure I could use the card since it had my husband's name on it. After standing there for 15 minutes while she tried to get through to them, she decided to "let it go". I told her that if I were going to do something illegal with a credit card it would be for way more than $200 and would NOT be home improvement crap.

And in weird news, our contractor came over and dropped off our final bill. One small problem, the work isn't finished yet. He is supposed to be making us a new countertop to replace the one he botched and then there were a couple things that I told him to forget about doing that I just wanted him gone. And yet our bill doesn't reflect that either.

Rob is going to deal with it, which probably means he'll pay the bill and we will live with it. He is not confrontational, prefers to give people the benefit of the doubt, and thinks that bad karma will come back to the person. So unlike me.

The contractor still has his sign in our front yard. I so badly want to tear it out of the ground, but the only time I think of it is when I am pulling out of the driveway in my van and then I invariably have the children with me. I don't think it would be a very good example to see me take it out of the ground and stomp all over it. But if it is still there this weekend I am so throwing it into our firepit.

Either I am Nesting

or I have developed bipolar disorder and am in an extreme manic phase. I. can't. stop. cleaning.

This morning I was looking around our master bathroom, which has become *everyone's* bathroom while we are in the midst of the bathroom renovations, and realized that it had not been properly cleaned in a long long time. Eeeeewwwww.

I took the shower doors off their tracks and set them aside so I could get into the walk-in shower better. This also allowed more light into the shower area, which I guess is a good thing, but I was horrified at all the soap scum lurking and the mildew on the bottom of the shower door and track. And so armed with my chemicals I set about scrubbing the bathroom.

As I was cleaning I was looking around the room and just could not help myself. I tore up the wall-to-wall carpeting that was in there. Who puts carpet in a bathroom? It is dark greenish. The walls are tiled with light green, pink, white, and yellow tile. The upper part of the wall is painted a matching Pepto-Bismol pink. The room looks like an Easter basket threw up in it.

But the topper has to be the cobalt blue sink. Not only is it ugly and doesn't match, but it shows up every drop of toothpaste and soap if it isn't scrubbed out after every use. And you can guess that does not happen often enough. I did ask the children if they spew the toothpaste out of their mouths all over the sink and wall on purpose because I cannot imagine how it gets everywhere like it does without trying.

Rob called while I was about an hour into my cleaning project and talked me out of tearing anything else out of the room. In my defense I think it was the cleaning fumes.

So tomorrow while the big kids are at their art class I am going to Home Depot to buy paint, flooring, sink, faucet, and a new medicine cabinet. It is a small room, too small really for a master bathroom, so my goal is to finish it this project this week. I took some "before" pictures and will post them with the "afters" when I am done.

Later on in the afternoon, when I had recovered from my 2 hour bathroom cleaning frenzy, I finished painting all the white trim in my new laundry room and bathroom. I was so happy to tear that blue painters tape off the walls, even if it did take some of the wall paint off the wall. I guess the tape is only supposed to be temporary, not remain on the wall for months on end.

But like everything here at the big yellow house, it is two steps forward and one step back. Or is it one step forward and two steps back... because more often than not it feels like the latter.

I walked into my kitchen to discover this:



What?!? It was just there a few minutes ago. And not only that, the drawer front was nowhere in the near vicinity. Granted the cabinets are not great quality and we are planning on replacing them, but I still prefer fronts on them until that time. And I was really taken aback that someone would not only break it off, but run off with it and not tell me.

I yelled from the kitchen that I wanted the door front back. And in walked my 1 yr old carrying it like a shield.



Of course then "Baby" had to come and have a look at it also.

Our Weekend In Bullet Points

• left house early for 8:00 am eyebrow waxing since Halloween is over and cannot justify that Herman Munster look any longer.
• went to walmart for diapers, sculpey clay, and commemorative issue of Sports Illustrated for the boys (the World's Series issue, not the bathing suit one)
• brought 5 yr old to gymnastics lessons which requires entertaining the 1 yr old in the waiting room for an hour
• drove through McDonald's drive through and bought french fries for the screaming starving 1 and 5 yr olds, who filled up after eating maybe two fries a piece and then scattered the rest all over the backseat of anal retentive obsessively compulsively clean Rob's car.
• went to toy store to buy eldest son a present for his birthday which is next week. left with 4 things for Christmas for a different child.
• drove home from store like a crazed woman when I realized we are late for a party we uncharacteristically said we would attend
• Talked to Rob on the cell phone when he called to see if I had hopefully broken down somewhere so that he could call the party throwers and tell them we wouldn't be able to make it
• Tell him no such luck and then wonder briefly what the heck is wrong with us that we dread going to parties
• Arrive home safely and see that Rob and kids have cleaned up the front porch and raked all the leaves from the front and side yard. Am duly impressed.
• Drive to party
• Pull into steep dirt driveway and before Rob can pull out and repark the van two more cars pull in behind us and block us in. Have a panic attack thinking that we are now trapped at the party for the duration unless we want to make a scene
• Realize this is strictly an outdoor party, and it is cold, windy, and the sun is already beginning to go down. So I spend a good portion of the party huddled near their bonfire eating my children's candy. And simultaneously wonder what would possess someone to give out HUGE freaking paper sacks of candy when most of us parents had finally rid our homes of the halloween candy. kept eating children's candy convinced I was doing it for their own good.
• Oh and there was no food served except candy and some gatorade to wash it down with, wanna talk sugar highs?
• Successfully avoided talking to most of the annoying mothers at the party and sidestepped a conversation with a woman who was telling me she thought all homeschooled children should have to be tested every year to make sure there parents are actually teaching them the right things.
• leave party and head to ski mountain for the annual used ski sale
• Find a great deal on ski pants ($30) and new skis($90) for 9 yr old, who complains bitterly that they are "not colorful" enough for him. He wants an $80 pair of red snowpants and "different" skis. he ends up with nothing.
• Did get a great pair of ski boots for 5 yr old for $15. And there was no complaining about the color.
• Leave ski swap with an empty handed now crying 9 yr old who thinks we are the meanest parents ever. We tell him that we will contribute the amount of money we were prepared to spend at the sale toward whatever he chooses at a ski shop. And because we are masochists we head out toward the ski shop.
• Only to arrive half an hour later and find it closed, which is obviously our fault as parents.
• Realize that Rob has changed the time back on the clock in the van and that we no longer need to subtract an hour and it is 8:30pm and we have no dinner plans
• order pizza for dinner and pick it up on the way home
• Get kids to carry upstairs all their clean laundry and put it away
• Finally get the kids to bed and collapse on the couch
• Sunday morning comes too quickly and Rob goes fishing in the early morning
• Bake a pan of apple crisp with the help of the the small children who fight over using the nifty apple corer/peeler
• Do several loads of laundry and put it all away, yea me!
• Rob arrives home from fishing and does some sheetrocking and electrical work on the family room
• I consider all the things I could be doing and then opt to be a slacker and go outside and enjoy an unseasonably warm sunny day
• Supervised the installation of shelving in our mudroom closet and then unpacked all the winter coats and hung them up
• Folded up the pool and put it away... finally
• Rob made a bonfire in our fire pit and we all hung out outside for the rest of the day until someone asked what was for dinner and I had no idea. This seems to be a pattern again lately.
• Fed the masses
• Bathed the masses
• Directed the masses to their beds
• Collapsed on the couch and realized that I was looking forward to Monday so I could relax.
  
  

Do You Know The Significance of this Photo?

It is the last soccer game of the season.

Could you hear the collective screams of joy from all the parents here? No? Well, they might have been drowned out by the wind, fog, and frigid temperatures.

It was a tournament with the neighboring towns. My eldest son was very disappointed that their team did not win a trophy. His goal in life lately is to win a trophy. He assess all future career aspirations on the basis of whether or not he could win a trophy doing it. For example:

Doctor... yes might be nice to save people and stuff, but they don't hand out trophies at the hospital. Apparently the intrinsic reward of saving someone's life is not enough.

Baseball player... very very good job. Lots of trophies, rings, cards with your photo on them. And the question of what would he think if he was on a baseball team that didn't win was met with a completely blank stare. Of Course his team would win, because he was on it and unlike the soccer team they don't just "let anyone on it", duuuuh.

Businessman, like Dad... sounds really boring. Rob suggested that he could get himself a cute little trophy wife like me. He just looked confused at that one. I am sure our hysterical laughter didn't help either. After a few minutes I did have to tell Rob that I thought he was laughing a *bit* too much for my liking.

After his soccer game we were talking about the game and I told him what a great job he had done as goalie. He recently switched from playing center forward to goalie. The other teams have now been kept to scoring only one or two goals down from ten or more, but now that he isn't a forward and in position to score, their team is scoring nothing.

He looked at me, very seriously and said, "Yeah, but I am just one kid. I can't win the game myself."

I was about to congratulate him for realizing what it means to be a team player, when he asked if we could move to a town where the kids were as good as he is. His modesty makes me proud ;-)

Should I Worry About This

My daughter has a new favorite "toy" she calls Baby. Baby is carried and dragged all over the house.

She kisses it. She pretends to feed it. She tucks it into bed. She brushes Baby's teeth and puts elastics on it's hair.

Baby has even come out on errands with us. I have to strap Baby into the van because she is so heavy and would probably be a hazard if we had a car accident. Though admittedly probably no more of a hazard than the petrified McDonald's food on the floor.

I did have to draw the line at taking Baby to bed, though.

Because Baby is a two foot tall, outdoor fountain sculpture. It used to be in one of the flower gardens in our backyard until my daughter "rescued" it.

We do have other toys in our house, really we do. I don't understand this obsession with the heavy, hard, lawn sculpture. But for whatever reason, she loves it and so I am now stuck carrying both of them around.

Random Election Day Thoughts

of no particular significance.

1) I am very happy that so many elderly people decided to go out and vote this morning, really I am. But, the rest of us have places to be so please get your car out of my way. And I was equally thrilled that so many of you decided to go grocery shopping after voting. There is nothing like experiencing road rage and shopping aisle rage in the same morning.

2) Homemade candidate signs on people lawns were amusing. I appreciated their unbridled enthusiasm. However, some of the people have apparently never become acquainted with a dictionary.

3) If you say you are going to move out of the country if Bush is re-elected, please do it. I am tired of hearing you say it since *before* the last election, yet do *nothing* to become the least bit politically active in over 4 years, except complain. Please don't make me have to kidnap you, throw you in my trunk, and drop you over the border of Canada. I am too busy already.

4) You are not supposed to vote for the person the polls tell you will win . You are supposed to vote for who you want to win. (Unless of course they are the same person.) But I have heard so many people say they wanted to vote for x, but think y is going to win, so they are going to vote for y so that they don't throw their vote away. I am frightened by the American public sometimes.

5) There is no such thing as a wasted vote.

6) Voting with all your over-sugared, hyperactive children along adds a whole new dimension to the voting process. I like to think we provided some much needed entertainment to the masses. At least I was able to blame the brawl that occurred between my children on political differences.

7) Rob somehow is no longer registered to vote. He had to fill out a provisional ballot, which only allowed him to vote for the President. You think it will actually be counted? Me neither.

Election Day

Did you?

The Candy

Have at it little scavengers of mine. You have all been forewarned that I will not clean up vomit from eating too much candy, nor will I be particularly sympathetic when you crash from your sugar highs.

I will be hiding in the pantry eating my stash of candy I pilfered from the bowl before dumping it.

Is it almost bed time?

Halloween

I never did manage to carve all of our pumpkins, but the kids didn't seem to care.

Trick or Treating was fun. Our small town closes off a few streets in town where the houses are closer together and that is where everyone does their trick or treating. Everyone in town donates candy that is passed out to the families who live in those houses.

The weather was beautiful. Last year it was really really warm and many kids were whining that they were too hot in their costumes and the year before that there was already snow on the ground. It is hard to know from year to year what the warmth level of the costumes should be. Such is life in New England.

On a side note, I was appalled at the number of preteens/early teens out making mischief. Hmmmm does using the word mischief make me sound like an old fart or what?? I have heard that the parents of these kids actually buy them the shaving cream etc, saying that it is all good clean fun. I just have to disagree. They use the shaving cream to write truly vile, disgusting , and offensive things all over the street, people's houses, and public property. The people whom I am friends with that have children this age do not allow their kids to go out and act this way. I don't understand why the parents of these kids can't find an alternative outlet for them on Halloween.

Anyway, enough of that particular rant.

We came home and poured out all our candy and dug in. I haven't decided yet what to do with all the candy. In various years I have swung between rationing it out and just letting them go at it.