Munchkins in Madison

Daniel and his dog....Indiana

Christopher, playing in the sun room

 Take one Gigi, one Grampy (for a day and a half), a mom, a dad and two active, smart/clever, fast, and absolutely darling boys, throw in a little Halloween and what do you get?  One very happy but tired Gigi.  Not to mention the traveling, which is a story unto itself.  Keep reading, it gets interesting, maybe.

I finally got my fall fix!  Halloween in Madison, Wisconsin!  I think this should be an annual trip.  It was so much fun to enjoy trick or treating with Daniel and Christopher. 

Halloween has never been one of my favorite holidays, maybe because as a mother of 4, there was always so much pressure to think of clever, cute, and doable costumes....times 4.  That kind of creativity has never been my strong suit, but the kids did have a few memorable costumes through the years.  Then there is the actual day of trick or treating... try to get 4 kids dressed, feed them a somewhat nutritious dinner which will be ruined later on with pounds of  candy.  Then comes the week after when all they want to do is eat candy and they become these irrational, sugar crazed people with no self control.  Yeah....those were the good old days.  Maybe things have changed.

Daniel the Duck

Christopher the Sock Monkey

Big door, little duck....sooo cute!

This is our little duck trick or treating, he loved to stop in every flower bed and pick up treats like pine cones, rocks and sticks.  Not so interested in candy!

I think 2 year olds are easier to have Halloween with!  Daniel ate a delicious and nutritious dinner and happily put his duck costume on and was ready to go!  He was such a good trick or treater, he said "thank you" to everyone!  He was definitely more interested in the sticks and rocks in the flower beds than the candy.  He had the usual over indulgence of candy that night and became a sugar coated irrational duck at one point, but for the most part, he was a champ!  Christopher made it to 2 houses, mostly just to show off his adorable, hand knit by Aunt Katie, sock monkey costume.  The best part was that being 2, Daniel pretty much forgot about all that candy the next day and had moved on to bigger and better things, like playing.  This video is just one of many, Daniel and I are featured in one on Rachel's blog.

For the next few days, we did a lot of chasing, feeding, diaper changing, playing, laughing, crying (well Daniel and Christopher cried) and finally sleeping!  Instead of sharing all the details of the visit....I'll just show you more pictures of my very cute grandkids!

Daniel and his giant Elmo puzzle that we had to do at least twice a day!

Christopher and me at swimming lessons, another fish in the family.

Snack time....the only time he sits still

This was a hilarious night time activity.  Daniel methodically took every toy and book and "placed" them individually in the corner over by Christopher.  He is practicing not throwing things... which everyone knows is instinctive in boys or is at least in my experience.  It was at least a half hour of playing without any crying or bodily harm, a small victory and totally enjoyable for the adults in the room who were trying to be invisible.

Great job Daniel! 

Guess what we did after they went to bed?

The trip home was interesting too.  I took the Badger Bus from Madison to the Milwaukee airport dark and early Wednesday morning.  It was a quiet ride in the dark for the most part and I slept on and off for the 2+ hour ride.  There were two particularly interesting characters on the bus.  One older bag lady with a babushka on her head, wearing an old coat and several layers of clothing carrying a paper bag with other  clothing inside.  She sat in the first seat right behind the driver, I was in about the 5th row.   Two hours later at the bus terminal in Milwaukee where all but 4 of us got off the bus the bag lady got off the bus and asked the driver after everyone had gone, if the bus had a video camera on board recording the ride because.......wait for it.........she had been "assaulted and nearly murdered".  She also asked if the convenience store where we picked her up had video cameras because right before she got on the bus she had been, "assaulted and nearly murdered"!   I must have been sleeping way harder than I thought because I didn't hear a thing!  The driver handled the situation with as much coolness as he could and she went into the terminal....risking being assaulted and nearly murdered to see if they had video cameras.

The other interesting person was a large black man carrying a clear plastic bag with his clothing in it. At the bus depot after the driver got back on the bus this fellow came up to the driver to ask how long it would take to get to the airport as he had to catch a 8:41 a.m. flight.  It was 8:25 when he asked this question!  I could not wait to see how the driver handled this one.  He told him it would be between 5 and 10 minutes and that he should have taken the 3:30a.m. bus.  There is a 3:30 bus?  Darn!  He fretted and fretted and asked if flights were ever late.  He was convinced that if he got to the airport at 8:40 that he would by some miracle make his 8:41 flight!  At the airport he took his plastic bag of clothing and another larger bag of clothing and headed to the desk.  Guess he does not travel much.  I have got to give our driver a shout out though because he handled these people with such ease and patience without them getting angry or causing a much larger disturbance than they did. 

So I'm back home and now I am thinking of all the childproofing I need to do to the house before Christmas!  Will Christopher be able to scale small buildings in a single bound by then?  Will I be rested enough to keep up with all of them by then?  I am going out to buy baby gates and cabinet locks!

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