Trick or Treat

All day long, all I heard from Ellie was, "is it time?" She knew today was Halloween and she really knew what that meant: CANDY! At 10 am, on our way out the door to go to playgroup, she asked, "is it time?" When Craig returned home from a meeting she asked, "is it time?" During dinner she asked, "is it time?" While Craig was taking pictures of the kids in their holiday clothes she asked, "is it time?" It wasn't until she was in her cowgirl outfit, had her treat bag and flashlight ready and after the neighbors came over for pictures, were we able to announce, "IT"S TIME!!!"

Hayden didn't "get" the whole idea until he watched as our neighbor J. rang our doorbell and saw his daddy put candy in his pumpkin. Oh, you could see the wheels turning in Hayden's head..."all I have to do is go to the door and get candy?" "Woo hoo!" Yes, he actually exclaimed "woo hoo"! There was no stopping that boy after that realization. He soon had acquired his own candy in the a fore mentioned manner and was so proud to show off his "AN-DEE." Ellie remained true to form and realized that Halloween is really about: 1. looking super cute in your costume and 2. the candy!


Craig stayed home to man the door and my neighbor C. and I loaded all three of the kids up in our wagon. The kids had a really great time going door to door. We occasionally had to remind them of their manners and would prompt them with a "what do you say now?" At one house, Hayden decided to take that reminder in his own way and instead of saying "thank you" when prompted, he said "MO A-DEE, EASE" (more candy please). Well at least he was polite about it, huh! We received a TON of compliments on how cute the kids all looked. It was pointed out to us that we did a great job with the "Toy Story" characters, which we hadn't even realized we had kind of assembled: Buzz, Woody and Jessie. Who knew we were so creative!? Anyway, we just went around one small loop of our neighborhood and decided everyone had way more than enough candy and decided to call it quits.

When we returned home, Craig was about out of candy, so we went next door to hang out with our neighbor R. and his kiddos. The kids all dumped their candy out on the lawn to check out their haul and us parents quickly picked through it so we could "sample" the good stuff! Every time you turned around, Hayden was opening something new-he definitely ate his fare share that evening. Soon it began to get late so we headed home. Thankfully, the kids weren't on too much of a sugar high, and managed to collapse in bed after all the excitement. It was a tremendously fun night- and it was such a pleasure to be able to share in my children's excitement.