The children were obviously talking about two different kinds of mummies, but Ben was quickly distracted by talk of pumpkin poop. He made a face at the thought of cleaning up poop of any kind. "Cos poops is worse than Maddie poops," he declared.

"Looks like it's going to be an early bath time tonight!" Jon warned with a chuckle.

"Cos poops is definitely worse than Maddie poops," Vicki agreed sagely. "Did you guys decide on what you want that pumpkin to look like" Because if you're going for a bath, I could finish it up and we could put them in your rooms for tonight. With candles."

Emily's expression lit up. "Oooh, can we" What does we want on the punkin, Benji?"

"Cosmo!" Ben exclaimed, not quite getting the whole scary aspect of Halloween just yet. He had obviously become quite attached to the dog and the dog seemed to feel likewise.

Jon chuckled. "Looks like you have your work cut out for you, Vic," Jon teased, elbowing her with a cheesy grin. "Get it' Cut out?"

"Cosmo ....that's ..." Vicki nodded, her nonplussed expression sending Emily into hooting cackles. "Challenge accepted. And isn't Daddy lucky' He gets to give you a bath!"

Jon looked slightly disappointed that Vicki didn't seem to have appreciated his pun, but he only exhaled a sigh. "Probably end getting soaked, too!" he said, scooping Ben up in his arms. "All right then. Bath time it is!"

"Yay!" Emily clambered down off her perch, scampering in the direction of the second bathroom excitedly.

Vicki snorted with laughter. "There goes the only child I know who gets excited about bath time," she drawled, nudging Jon impishly. "Hope you don't get washed out. Get it?"

"Mine was better," he said, sticking his tongue out at her. "Let me get these two cleaned up and settled and then I'll help you clean up," he told her, though it was more than likely the twins would be up by then, ruining that plan.

"Don't rush," she laughed, leaning in to kiss his cheek, dropping a kiss onto Ben's pudgy cheek in the process. "The terrible twosome might wake up anytime now. But first! I have a doggie pumpkin portrait to create!"

"Yay! Doggie punkin!" Ben exclaimed, his father chuckling as he carried the little boy off for a bath. Halloween or not, it was just another day in the life of the Grangers.

Not for nothing was Vicki usually the one left in charge of carving the pumpkins. With a bribe to keep Cosmo still long enough to get a sketch of him onto the pumpkin rind, she applied herself to the situation. It wasn't going to be as simple as Emily's pumpkin, that was for sure, but once the candle was inside, it'd be good enough, she hoped. By the time the bath was done, she'd just about finished up, rummaging for the electric tea lights to put inside and let the children see what their imaginations had created.

Jon settled both children in front of the TV with crayons and coloring books while he changed his clothes, before joining Vicki in the kitchen of the little suite of rooms they called home at the manor. "The twins are stirring," he warned, as he paused to take a look at her handiwork. "Very impressive, Mrs. Granger," he said, sliding his arms around her waist, even as she was searching for tea lights.

"At least they have decent timing tonight," she mused, leaning back into his arms, the two little electric lights in her hand. "Your dog sat better for his sketch than you do," she teased, tilting her head back to kiss the corner of his mouth. "Fingers crossed neither gives Ben nightmares."

"The dog or me?" Jon asked, knowing that was not at all what she meant. He smiled and touched a kiss to the back of her neck, knowing what that did to her, but they hadn't made four children without knowing their way around a bedroom. "What do you think Humphrey would say if we ordered out tonight?"

She snorted with laughter, twisting about to touch a kiss to his lips even as a belated shiver ran down her spine. "You really shouldn't do that when we're in imminent danger of being interrupted, Mr. Granger," she pointed out to him affectionately. "And if we're ordering out tonight, one of us needs to tell the cook. We should still make sure we spend a little time with him, though."

"Okay, so no ordering out. What do you think the odds are that the cook knows how to make pizza?" he asked, not necessarily for tonight's dinner, but maybe for tomorrow's. The kids could only handle meat and potatoes so often, after all, and it was more about keeping Humphrey company than sharing a meal.

"I should think the odds are in your favor, stud muffin," Vicki grinned, nipping the end of his nose. "If you get to her before she starts cooking around midday tomorrow. I swear, that woman somehow makes cooking one meal last hours!"

"Think Humphrey would mind?" he asked, trusting her judgment. As much as he enjoyed living at the manor and sharing their lives with Humphrey, every now and then it was nice to do something different for a change, as much as the cook might grumble about it.

She smiled, stroking her thumb along the line of his jaw. "I think he'd probably jump at the chance to have something a little different," she assured him. "He likes his stodgy food, but he also likes things like enchiladas. Why not pizza" Especially a pizza he can customize for himself."

"Maybe we should give the cook the night off and tackle it ourselves for a change. We could even have him upstairs. Let the kids give him a Halloween fashion show," Jon suggested, though he wasn't sure Humphrey could do the stairs very well anymore.

"That ....is a fantastic idea," Vicki enthused. "And I'm sure Lucille would jump at the chance to take the night off and surprise her grandkids. You are a genius, darlin'." She beamed, rising onto her toes to kiss the tip of his nose as a familiar mewling started up from the nursery. A moment later, Cosmo barked, just to drive the point home. She sighed in resigned amusement. "You get to choose which one you're grabbing."

"You mean, besides you?" he asked, with a cheeky grin as he grabbed hold of her backside. But he knew the twins wouldn't wait too long before they let the whole house know they were awake and ready to escape the prison that was their bedroom. "I'll take Maddie," he said, only because he'd had Chris the day before, and it was only fair to take turns.

She laughed as he squeezed her rear end, sending him off with a gentle spank to his bottom. "I'll be there in a minute," she promised, moving to check the pumpkins looked all right with their lights intact before she followed him toward the nursery and the terrible twosome within.

Juggling four small children was definitely a challenge, but a challenge Jon and Vicki seemed to be handling, so far. Of course, they had plenty of help when they needed it. While Jon wandered off to look in on the twins, he was replaced by a small boy, tugging at Vicki's shirt.

"C'n I see my punkin now?" Ben asked from somewhere near Vicki's knee.

She glanced down with a fond smile, glad she'd put the lights inside the pumpkins already. "Of course you can, sweetheart," she promised. "Do you think Emily wants to see hers, too' Maybe we should ask her before we turn the lights off and look at them properly."

"We want to ask him tonight," Vicki told him, wiping Chris' bottle dry on her hip. "So we have to look like real people, and not monsters from under our beds!" She grinned, letting Chris take the bottle from her hand so she could ruffle Ben's hair. "Shoo - slippers and robe!"

"Yes, Mummy!" Ben replied with an adoring smile up at his mother, before dashing out of the room to shout the news at his sister.

"Those punkins are really amazing, you know," Jon remarked as he returned, with Maddie in his arms, enjoying her bottle.

Tilting Chris' bottle so he could get something out of it, Vicki turned back to Jon with a faint grin. "You were expecting mediocre punkins?" she asked impishly, but there was a pleased flush on her cheeks that told him she very much appreciated the compliment.

"No, but I wasn't expecting Cosmo to look so much like ....Cosmo," Jon replied with a chuckle. "He's not very scary," he said further, but then that was the whole point of Ben's pumpkin. "Do you think Ben is gonna be able to handle Halloween?" he asked, a little worriedly. They were careful to make sure the holiday wasn't too scary or overwhelming, but Ben was currently going through a nightmare phase.

"Well, I don't think anyone's going to come as anything particularly scary," she mused thoughtfully. "And he'll know everyone at the party, so even if some of the costumes scare him, he'll relax once he knows who's wearing what. You'll just have to save Zombie Dad for next year."

It was admittedly the teens who were likely to sport the scariest costumes, but hopefully they wouldn't be so scary that the kids wouldn't recognize who was wearing those costumes. Jon made a face at Vicki's remark. "No Mummy Mummy for you either," he said.

She snorted with laughter. "You are going to laugh like a drain when you see what Ben and Ems persuaded me into this year," she promised him. "Apparently I'm not allowed to get away with not dressing up because I'm not a new mummy this year."

"It wouldn't by any chance be a French maid, would it?" he asked, with a teasing gleam in his eyes. He was pretty sure that wasn't it, but he could dream, couldn't he"

Vicki cackled with laughter, accidentally startling Chris. "Oh, sorry, baby." She kissed the upturned nose, inserting the bottle back between his lips. "If that's the way you're going, you're looking at disappointment. Besides, what did they persuade you to wear?"

"I can't say. I was sworn to secrecy," he replied, and would have shushed her with a finger to his lips, except he was too busy holding Maddie against his hip.

She grinned. "So was I," she agreed in amusement. "Anyone would think they didn't trust us."

"Who doesn' trust you, Mummy?" Emily demanded from behind her, wrapped up in her pink dressing gown with those enormous bunny slippers on her feet. "Is it time for dinner" 'Cos I'm hungry."

"Is we havin' me-loafs 'gain 'cause I hate me-loafs," Ben complained with a scowl as he arrived at Emily's side, in a Ninja Turtles bathrobe and slippers.

"I hope not!" Jon replied a little too quickly.

Vicki snorted with laughter. "We don't like meatloaf either," she promised the little boy. "And it doesn't smell like meatloaf, does it' Take a big sniff and make a guess!" She breathed in deep, heading toward the door of their suite to lead their little family downstairs.

The little boy wasn't too sure why they called it Me-Loaf, when no one seemed to like it. He drew a deep breath in an attempt to identify what they were having for dinner. He wasn't too good at it yet, but some smells were easier to identify than others. "Puss-ghetti!" he declared triumphantly and happily. What kid didn't like puss-ghetti"

"But I can smell sausages, too," Emily pointed out, holding onto the pocket of Jon's pants as they followed after Vicki and Ben. She giggled as Cosmo came padding out from under the coffee table to join them.

"No, puss-ghetti!" Ben insisted, furrowing his brows at his older sister as reached for his mother's hand. He'd almost tripped down the stairs more than once and was now very careful to hold onto his mother's hand, at least, until he got a little taller.

"I think you're both right," Jon pointed out, as he could identify both smells wafting toward them.

"I think it smells like Lucille's special spaghetti with hot dogs," Vicki suggested, letting Ben grip her fingers as they headed carefully down the stairs.

Behind them, Emily wriggled her own hand into Jon's free fingers, swinging his hand back and forth between them. Jon curled his fingers around Emily's as they headed downstairs for dinner.

"My fav'rite!" Ben exclaimed, almost tripping down the stairs as his excitement got the best of him.

"Careful, Ben!" Jon called, just as Cosmo snuck past them all to lead the way to Humphrey, and hopefully a treat.

"Easy there, hopalong!" Thankfully, Vicki had a good grip on her elder son's hand as he lunged forward - even if he fell, he was going to dangle from her hand until he got his feet under him again. "Dinner's not going to run away from you!"

Once Ben's feet hit the floor, he was off and running, abandoning his parents to chase after Cosmo in search of his uncle. "That boy is gonna give me a heart attack someday," Jon remarked with another chuckle.

Overhearing this, Emily deliberately waited until they got to the bottom of the stairs before making herself known. "Can I go and pounce on Grampa Gumpy, Daddy, please?"

Vicki bit her lips tightly together to keep from laughing; Emily always took the opportunity to have better manners than Ben, even when it was a silly situation.

"Yes, you may, but don't pounce!" Jon replied, hoping Ben was behaving himself. As much as he adored the little ones, Humphrey was a little too old to have children pouncing and bouncing on him anymore. His advancing age worried Jon, but that wasn't something he ever talked about in front of the "Old Man" at all.

Given the gale of laughter that erupted from the dining room as Emily sped off in that direction, it didn't seem as though Humphrey minded being pounced tonight. Vicki slowed her step to fall in beside Jon, Chris' empty bottle tucked into her pocket. "You were saying?"

"I swear he's found a fountain of youth somewhere," Jon said with a relieved chuckle. There were days when it seemed like Humphrey had more energy than he did, but then the Old Man didn't have to juggle four kids all day long.

"He loves having the kids around him." She smiled, gently nudging Jon's arm. "Best decision we ever made, moving in here." On her hip, Chris burped happily, wriggling his fingers at Maddie.

"We gots to try them out still," Ben replied, eyeing up the spaghetti with greedy eyes and a watering mouth, as his father set him onto the booster seat beside Humphrey and tucked a napkin into his shirt.

"Try to keep it on the plate tonight, Ben, okay?" Jon asked.

"Mm'kay, Dada! I'll try!"

At least Emily still got a napkin tucked into her neckline too; neither one of the older children was exactly tidy when it came to eating one of their favorite meals. "Does the old troll need a napkin too?" Vicki asked Humphrey, grinning as he showed off his patented scowl, eyes twinkling above lips that did, eventually, grin back.

He stuck out his chin. "Yes, Mother."

Snorting with laughter, she tucked a napkin into the Old Man's collar, dropping a kiss to his temple, and turned to Jon. "Not so old troll?"

"Don't even think about it!" Jon warned with a chuckle. If Humphrey wanted to wear a napkin around his neck, he was free to do so, but his nephew wasn't about to follow suit. "I'll take the kiss, though," he added with a wink.

Laughing, Vicki leaned over to kiss her husband fondly, sitting down in her own seat and deliberately tucking her napkin into her shirt collar, too. Next to her, Chris roared with laughter, pudgy fingers already wrapped around his cooked carrot stick as he investigated his little pot of hummus.

Maddie was busy banging her empty bottle on the tray of her high chair, as if demanding to be paid attention to, too. Or maybe she was just practicing to be a drummer someday - it was hard to tell which. Jon sighed, as he noticed everyone around them had napkins tucked into their necklines but him. "Oh, very well," he relented, doing the same with his own, though he felt kind of silly that way. "Happy now?"

"Much better," Humphrey assured him, eyeing the two little people at his right and left hands in amusement. "And now, grace." He put his hands together piously. There was a snap as Emily's hands slapped together, her head bowed, and Vicki tossed Jon a grin. Humphrey never used any form of grace she was accustomed to, and today was no exception. "Good food, good meat," the Old Man intoned. "Good gods, let's eat!"

That form of saying grace worked as well as any, except with the possible exception of the vegetarian among them, but Vicki had never complained. Jon grinned back at Vicki, as the other bowed their heads to pray, his gaze moving from one to the other seated around the table, grateful every day of his life for each and every one of them.

At least Vicki's objection to meat was an aesthetic choice. She was quite capable of pulling the hotdogs out of her spaghetti and sharing them between the twins, who reacted as though Christmas had come early. "If you choke, I am not saving you," she informed Maddie cheerfully, handing over a hotdog to the excitable little girl.

"It's a good thing we have some medical professionals living at Maple Grove then," Jon remarked, regarding Vicki's comment. He knew she was only kidding, but it was still a good thing they had a couple of doctors residing at the Grove. "So, are we opening the Grove up to trick-or-treaters again this year?" he asked, as he wound some spaghetti around his fork.

Vicki glanced toward Humphrey curiously.

The Old Man glanced up, slurping his spaghetti hastily down so he could respond. "I believe so," he nodded. "Though the city seems to have calmed down, it is still a dangerous enough place that many children don't have the opportunity to indulge in such innocent pastimes. We can give them that opportunity on the Grove."

"What do we need to do to help?" Jon asked further, amidst the sound of slurping spaghetti from those around him, and the occasional noisy reminder from the twins not to forget about them. Cosmo quietly waited in eager anticipation of any hotdogs that might accidentally or otherwise end upn the floor.

"Find out who on the Grove is happy to give out treats," Humphrey suggested, nodding to him as he "accidentally" slipped Cosmo a hot dog. "And you, madam artist, can arrange decorations. I refuse to be covered in cobwebs like last time."

Vicki laughed around her mouthful. "I'm reliably informed you want to be a mummy this year, Humph."

"But we already gots a Mummy," Ben pointed out helpfully, terribly confused about the whole mummy business.

Jon chuckled, taking pity on his poor son. "Not that kind of Mummy, Ben."

Humphrey chuckled. "Should I dress up as your Mummy then, little master?" he asked the little boy, absentmindedly reaching out to catch Emily's water glass as she fumbled it. He really was an old-hand when it came to children.

Ben's eyes grew wide at his uncle's question, equally confused by his father's unfinished attempt at an explanation. "Is you gonna wear a dress?" he asked soberly, to which his father laughed again, almost choking on his own hotdog.

"Does your Mummy wear dresses a lot?" Humphrey countered with a grin. "Maybe we should go through her clothes and find some that will fit me."

Emily cackled happily, shaking her head. "No, 'cos you don't have boobies like Mummy does!"

Oh, dear. This conversation wasn't going very well, but it certainly was amusing. "Auntie Beff gots the biggest boobies!" Ben declared, very matter-of-factly.

Jon cleared his throat and turned an accusing glare at Vicki. "I wonder where he heard that," he murmured.

"It's not my fault your son pays close attention when Elle and I are discussing other ladies' assets," his cheeky wife responded impishly, not at all abashed at Ben's comment.

"Did you know that Fliss got boobies?" Emily offered, eager to be a part of the conversation. "Mo says that Fliss's boobies make Lucas go all red and giggly."

"The point is whether you should be discussing other ladies' assets in front of him," Jon pointed out, though he seemed far more amused than annoyed. "I don't think you should mention Fliss', er ..." Jon trailed off, feeling suddenly awkward himself, though he never had before. Just how did one explain that talking about someone else's boobies might embarrass them?

"Most girls aren't like me and Aunt Elle," Vicki jumped in to save him. "We talk about everything, and a lot of what we talk about makes other people uncomfortable. That's why we don't talk about those things with anyone but each other. And that's why you don't mention Aunty Beth's boobies, or Fliss' boobies, or Uncle Des' winky, to anybody but me and Daddy, because it would be very rude to do it, and it would make them feel bad."

"Humphrey," the Old Man told him gently. "There's a "fuh" in there. Or you could call me what your mother does. Humph."

"Not Granpa?" Emily asked in concern. "Only, only you is our granpa sorts of. You is Granpa -" She concentrated. "- Hummfee, and the ovver granpa is Granpa Marsie."

Ben tried to roll that over on his tongue, but it still came out Humpy, no matter how hard he tried, and the more he tried, the closer he was coming to tears. "Humpy, Humpy. Dat's what I said!"

"And that's perfect," Humphrey assured him, reaching over to stroke Ben's cheek with one soft, gnarled hand. "When your mouth gets bigger, we can try again."

Ben sniffled and nodded at his uncle's reassurance. It had been frustrating trying to say his uncle's name perfectly when his mouth clearly didn't want to cooperate. "Why don't we call you Grampa?" he asked curiously and quite innocently. He knew he had both an uncle and a grandfather, but he wasn't quite sure what the distinction was between them. They were both old and somehow related to his parents, but he wasn't too sure how.

"Because Grampa Marshall is your mother's father, which makes him your grandfather, and Uncle Humphrey is my uncle, not my father," Jon tried to explain.

"Because families are complicated," Humphrey added with a smile. "But I would be very pleased if you called me Grandpa, both of you, and the twins when they can do more than shout."

Emily giggled at this assessment of the babies, who did, indeed, shout "mama" and "dada" at the top of their lungs at every opportunity.

"Are you sure?" Jon asked, always worrying that someone in the family might perceive this as some sort of favoritism, and yet, it was Jon and Vicki who had taken it upon themselves to move into the manor and keep Humphrey company.

"Of course I'm sure," Humphrey nodded firmly. "Caroline's little ones call me Grandpa, and I very much doubt it's possible to prevent Lyneth from doing it." He chuckled. "I rather like the idea of being an entire generation's grandfather."

"It's easier to say, too," Jon murmured with a smile.

"Yay! We has two grumpys!" Ben exclaimed, waving his fork excitedly and accidentally flinging a strand of spaghetti in Humphrey's direction.

Vicki snorted into her glass as Humphrey very delicately removed the spaghetti from his forehead, and handed it down to the dog. "I thought I'd finished eating," the Old Man commented mildly through an agreeable smile.

"Sorry, Uncle," Jon apologized for both his overly-exuberant, but well-meaning children.

"Dada, can I gets down now and pway with Cos?" Ben asked his father, growing bored with sitting at the table for so long.

Emily perked up at this; it generally took a little while to get the twins to the point where they were ready to be let down from the table, so it was a rare day when dinner kept everyone pinned in place.

Vicki flickered a grin over to Jon. "Yes, Dada, can the little monsters get down and play with the hairy monster?"

"So long as they wipe the spaghetti from their faces and hands first, yes," Jon replied, knowing there wasn't going to be much more eating going on at the table tonight.

Little fingers scrabbled for the napkins tucked around necks as Vicki chuckled again, turning her attention to making sure the twins were actually eating and not just playing with their food.

"Lucille made those sticky iced bun things Victoria insisted she learn how to make for dessert," Humphrey informed Jon over the sound of small voices cackling. "You may choose to sit at the table or on the floor, I will not judge you."

"I always prefer the table," Jon replied, though sometimes sitting on the floor was required depending on what the kids and the dog were up to. "You're pretty brave allowing the kids to eat spaghetti and sticky buns in the dining room," he added, as he turned to watch the kids a moment.

The Old Man laughed fondly, setting his own napkin aside to watch as Ben and Emily rolled around with Cosmo. "Miranda informs me that expecting children to be neat and tidy when eating before they're ten is expecting a miracle."

"I suspect Miranda is right. Ours certainly aren't!" Jon agreed with a chuckle. It was only these last few years since having children that he understood how very right she was, but despite all the messes and the chaos, he wouldn't have changed a thing. This was his family and his home and he knew he was right where he was supposed to be.

Right in the middle of the mess and the chaos, enveloped by the trust and the love, with a determined redhead holding his hand so she couldn't make too many mistakes, and an Old Man who could not express how much he appreciated being surrounded by family in his twilight years. Oh, yes. Jon was exactly where he was supposed to be.