"Fun, Fun Halloween!"

Last night in the car, Brian and I were talking about plans for the week. Emily overheard Brian talking about friends he wanted to visit and said, "But Daddy! Not tomorrow! You don't want to miss fun, fun Halloween!"

Luckily for me, we never went trick-or-treating in America, so she doesn't know to miss it here in Egypt. But when she went to bed tonight, she told me that this was the best Halloween ever, so I guess we did okay.

When I originally starting thinking about the upcoming holiday several weeks ago, I planned to have a small group of expat friends over to join us. But since I'm two days past hosting an extra 6 adults and 3 children in my house for a total of 13 days... I decided to taking a hosting break today.

 The girls and I made Candy Corn Cupcakes. There is nothing like baking, unless it is baking with two girls. Emily amazed me today - she practically made these herself, until it was time to add in the food coloring. She is getting so big.

 These are deviled eggs with black olive spiders on them. Emily and Savannah thought these were so funny.

 And a pumpkin shaped veggie tray....

 Along with nachos and orange kool-aid, because orange was deemed the most Halloweeny flavor.

We introduced Sophie to American black olives tonight, thanks to one of our friends who visited us last week and was so kind to bring them in for us.

We also watched Charlie Brown's The Great Pumpkin Patch.... I had never seen it before, but the girls thought it was cute.

This morning, as we were getting ready to begin making the cupcakes, Brian came in and used the last of the milk for his cereal. Emily almost immediately noticed that we need 1/2 cup of milk for the recipe. Neither Brian nor I were dressed or had any desire to get dressed any time soon, but Emily was in despair at being so close to making cupcakes and then having to wait.

After talking for a moment, we decided to let Emily and Savannah walk down to the "chipsy store" at the end of our street to buy milk. We laid out the rules, gave them Brian's cell phone, reminded them how to say "I want milk" in Arabic just in case they couldn't reach it, and enough money and off they went.

So much for not getting dressed... Brian and I both immediately went to our room and put clothes on and then I hung out the window watching for them to come back. Soon enough, here they came. Walking together, just like we had told them.

When Emily saw me at the window she grinned triumphantly and waved the bag with the milk at me. Savannah waved like she had been gone for 2 weeks instead of less then 10 minutes.

I'm not so sure about this growing up stuff. They seem to be handling it fine, but me, I'm not sure I love it...