Halloween and Opening Weekend

I just finally retreated from behind the pages of one of the classics: To Kill a Mockingbird.  I can't believe I had never read that book.  Did you know it was not even about birds?!  Had my teachers given me a teaser about what the book was about, I would have read it in high school!!!  Soooo good.

We also spent the weekend getting spoiled by Granny and Papa while waiting for Jason to fill our freezer.  It didn't take him long.  1 hour into hunting season, he shot 2 big deer!

I'm not really going to post pictures of them.  I save the really gory photos to send as surprise emails to my siblings. If you disguise the email, they open it without knowing what picture is going to pop up!!  But you can see them behind Elena :)

In order to get prime pickings for the beginning of deer season, we left on Halloween and drove the 6 hours.  Our kids are too young to know it is Halloween.  And they are homeschooled.  They only know what we tell them.  So we didn't say a thing about Halloween and the poor kids don't know how to read so they are clueless.

But Granny planned an awesome Halloween on the ranch.  It is a huge 1300 acre property with a dirt path connecting the three houses on it.  Granny asked Aunt Diane and Great-Granny to have a treat ready for the trick-or-treaters when they arrived!  

(Even though they live on a huge ranch accessible only by a dirt road, Granny always has Halloween candy just in case!!)

After the fiasco last year of making the kids an awesome costume and then realizing they did not appreciate them nearly as much as they should have, now I just let them pick whatever they want to wear.  (Also I actually have friends now.  Last year we were brand-new to town and I was very very bored...)  Except Roman.  He's all mine.

Leo has been wearing this costume for 3.5 years

He has really...uh...changed...

Trick-or-Treating at Granny's was awesome.  We drove to each of the houses.  The kids were allowed to do whatever they wanted because we were with family.  And with only 3 houses hit, we don't have the usual candy overload!  Most normal parents just portion 2 candies a day per kid.  Not this mom: 3 for me, 1 for you.  

Next visit: It's my turn to shoot the deer!!!