Early Halloween

This weekend the city put on a Harvest Festival complete with petting zoo, bouncy slide, and an arts and crafts table. The girls made some pretty cute leaf magnets for our refrigerator, fished out rubber duckies from a pool of water for a treat, and ate some cotton candy. Everything was free so it was fantastic.

Later that night, the city put on a safe trick or treat for the local businesses to advertise and the kids to get clean candy. We actually got there early with one of our neighbors and the streets were already filled. The girls fluttered from booth to booth in their fairy costumes and acquired quite a lot of loot. They even were given free ice cream coupons so when we finished we headed to the ice cream shop with the neighbors and ate our hearts out.

Yesterday, I set out the BBQ to cook some chicken while the kids were napping. I told Dave we would eat later but I wanted to get the cooking over with. Well, once the BBQ was hot and I had just put the chicken on, Olivia comes outside to announce her awakening. So much for cooking while she slept. A few minutes later one of the neighbor boys and his mom ran over to play with Liv. We got out some lawn chairs and within minutes our whole family, their whole family, and the family next to them were sitting in lawn chairs, kids playing on the lawn, and the grill was overflowing with chicken, tri-tip, and ribs. We had corn, asparagus, BBQ beans, hot dogs and drinks for the kids. So what set out to be a 15 minute job for me ended up being a 4 hour party with the neighbors and it was great. The kids had fun running and playing basketball. We had fun because the kids were having fun and since dinner was cooked on the grill there wasn't anything to clean up. Once darkness fell we went inside and bathed the girls, put on their jammies, and we all watched a movie together. It was a fun family weekend and it cost us nothing. Why can't everything be free?