Filled to the brim and spilling over.

 And yes... Halloween lasted ALMOST a full week at our house.  Thanks for pointing that out Sluggy! ;)  On Friday night, Beggars night finally came to town.  Hordes of kids came up to our house in hopes of candy that wasn't black licorice or in some cases, contained peanuts.  

When I watched The Middle last week, I was inspired to pull out the firepit and sit out by it to hand out candy.  It worked out SO slick that if the weather cooperates next year, we'll do it again!  The littles were so intrigued by the fire...  

Is it true that babies wet themselves when they look at fire?  That's what my grandma always said.  Oops!  Sorry about those costumes folks!

Meri wasn't around to help me get pizzas made for supper OR to get the firepit going as she was at the neighbor girls house getting her face on.  I have the loveliest daughters!!

Then they both came over to spook the kids.  Em climbed up in the tree to scare some, but a few parents saw her before hand and asked that she tone it down when their kids came up.  She obliged.

 Here are the pumpkins.  Created, from left to right.  Leon (ghost), Jen (mummy cat), Ryan (some creepy triangle head image from a game he plays... sorry - I don't remember!), then Meri (etched pattern).

A close up of hers.  Isn't this technique cool?  When I was kid, it basically a couple triangles for the eyes and jaggy teeth in the mouth.  There!  Done!  

We had bought 3 LARGE bags of variety candy bars at Sam's Club and by 5pm on Friday, I'd probably eaten a third of one of the bags.  On a side note, I'm dieting this week...

But I thought we'd have just TONS of candy left over.  So because of our projector shining a message on our garage, I told some older kids that came by, that if they made shadow puppets on the garage, I'd give them double the candy!  That was great!  The kids really enjoyed it.  And for the really little kids, I told them that if they got their Mom or Dad to do it, I'd give them more too.  They did...  But then Robb came out and mentioned that we could take leftover candy to Maddy on Saturday.  OH YEAH!!!  We could!!!  So I knocked it off.

Ryan and Leon went ALL over town!  They zig zagged the streets as Ryan taught him how to maximize the time spent on each street.  They cut across back yards to hit the culdesacs beyond.  Then Jen picked them up and zipped them over to a friend's house across town to hit up that neighborhood.

Leon made a haul.  This isn't even half of it.  And the doll was already ours...  Her name is Rose and is from Peru.  I'm not sure why she was even out.  But it's Halloween and anything can happen.  Even dolls coming to life.  Sorry I even brought that up Maddy!!

 

 Speaking of Maddy...  Meri had an all day haunted high school to create and perform at on Saturday, Leon was at his mom's and Ryan and Jen had a party to attend.  So Robb and I headed north to see Maddy!  We spent the afternoon helping her RA at the dorm.  We made sure that any boys who had come into the dorm to see any of the girls had that infamous brick in the door so that no hanky panky went on behind closed doors.  What a great college! :)

After checking in at the hotel and enjoying supper with her and Matthew, Maddy headed off to rehearse for the concert.

  

Here she is, still rehearsing, while we found our seats.  I moved where I was sitting so I could see her later.  If you want to see any of her concert, it's online.  Let me know and I'll send you the link.  So beautiful!  Matthew's dad and sister joined us for the concert and later for some ice cream at the DQ.  

FYI: If you're in her college town... almost EVERYTHING closes at 9pm.  We got to the Dairy Queen just before 9 and had to enjoy the frozen treats on the outside cement picnic table.  

Not only did we have brain freeze, we also had butt frost bite...  Afterwards, Maddy and Matthew visited with us longer at the hotel and long about 11:30 old time, Matthew headed back to the dorm.  Maddy stayed overnight with us.  The next morning, we met up with Matthew and his sister, who also happens to go to that college, for early church, then an all you can eat brunch before Robb and I headed back to Iowa.  

We got back in time to pick up Meri, for me to change some system times on a few of my client's computers and then head to Des Moines to catch the joint Reformation service of lots of churches in central Iowa.  It was wonderful!  But tiring.  I was getting pretty pooped.

But there was my weekend.  Long and filled.  And loved...  We even got back in time for Meri to see The Walking Dead!  Robb and I haven't watched it yet but will later in the week.

And the dogs missed us.