Let the festivities begin!

After yesterday's drama, today was a much more successful day. Schmoo's school hosts a penny carnival each year around Halloween. The kids are allowed to dress up in their non-scary Halloween costumes for the afternoon and they bring a bag of quarters to go around to each of the classrooms where each class hosts an activity. The kick off for this event is a gathering of all the kids and teachers in the gym, where they sing and do the actions to the "Monster Mash" and "One Eyed Purple Pickle Eater". They've been practicing and of course the older kids have done it year after year. It's a great opportunity to see a parade of all the costumes. We managed to get all the kids lined up for a class photo before they headed to the gym. Schmoo looked great in her bat costume, even though she had chosen to forgo the face paint.

Last year, I took both Schmoo and Bean to this event. This year, with it falling on a Thursday, I had to work all day, so Bean missed out. Instead, both Papa and I snuck away for an hour to visit the school, watch the Monster Mash dance and wander around with Schmoo for a couple of games. It's absolute pandemonium in the school, but the kids love it. Schmoo used up all her quarters on some games and many, many visits to the maze that they build in one of the classrooms out of appliance boxes. She was happy and pleasant when I trudged back up the hill at 3pm to pick her up after returning to work for an hour. We stopped at the movie store before picking up Bean and returning home for a snuggly afternoon out of the sleet.