Halloween Again

Early Wednesday morning I heard the padded footsteps of an alert toddler moving down the hallway and closer to my bedroom.  Soon enough I was pulling her into bed with us and remembering that it was the morning of Halloween.  When I excitedly told Stella that is was in fact Halloween day, she replied with amazement, “It’s Halloween again?!”

That confused response should tell you that we really celebrated Halloween right this year.  With two trunk-or-treats, a “Harvest” party and a Halloween party for Stella and her friends, an adult costume party for the parents, and, of course, the big night itself, we certainly did our share of celebrating and we most definitely have the bounty to prove it.

 

I am the first to admit that Halloween is not my most favorite of holidays, but I may be forced to change my tune a bit because Stella loved it!  All month long she has been obsessed with pumpkins, Halloween movies, and anything that in some obscure shape or form resembled Halloween to her.  We were eating lunch at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant that literally had two Halloween decorations hanging from the ceiling and from the moment we arrived and long after she called it the “Halloween restaurant” and talked about our visit there.  At the store she saw chocolate milk that was being advertised using Charlie Brown Halloween characters and so she just had  to have the “Halloween chocolate milk.”  She loved finding jack-o-lanterns on our neighbor’s doorsteps and determining if they had happy or scary faces.  She really got into everything this year and it did make it so much more fun!

I never care much for carving pumpkins, as I would rather let the ones sitting on my front porch carry over to Thanksgiving decor, but Ryan was determined to carve his this year.  Well, he finally got around to doing just that the morning of Halloween and he was not messing around.  Before I knew it he had busted out his dental instruments and the scene before me suddenly resembled something out of a horror movie involving an evil dentist and some poor, unsuspecting patients.

Stella wanted to paint her pumpkin, an artistic endeavor she is finally seeming to take an interest in; and we even let miss Eliza get in on the action. Letting my kids participate in activities that will cause messes and require extra time in the bathtub is always hard for me, but in the end I am always glad I relaxed just a little bit and allowed my kids to be kids.

 

Costumes ended up being pretty much effortless this year as everyone but Stella ended up giving old costumes a second life.  I’m not much for sewing and after Stella declared she was going to be a princess, a witch, a cat, and a pirate all in the span of two days, we headed to TJ Maxx to see what treasures awaited us.  I don’t think butterfly was on either of our radar, but $20 later we had ourselves the makings of a beautiful “butterfly fairy”.

I am in love with this picture.

 

We spent Halloween night with good friends eating yummy food, taking pictures of cute kids, and walking from door to door for 30 minutes until Stella’s purple pumpkin bucket was just “too heavy.”  That was as good a sign as any that we had collected enough candy to call it a night.  Now onto the Holiday season and more childlike excitement at every sighting of a turkey or a Christmas tree.  These girls of mine sure make life exciting!