Halloween Night 2007

Here's the summation of the evening! Lots of Halloween fun for everyone! (And, yes, Toto didn't last long in that basket. Hee, hee!)
Earlier, we started a new Halloween tradition. You see, the homes in our neighborhood are so few and far between that it takes forever to get from home to home. Therefore, we find that we're never home to see our own trick-or-treaters. Instead (and so they don't have to walk up our insanely long driveway), we've always put a big bowl of candy in the middle of the driveway. This way we can go Trick-or-Treating as a family, instead of the usual Mamma-goes-out-and-Daddy-answers-the-door type of thing. Well, this year, we made a fancy sign with cloth and acrylic paint. Leia drew a picture on the bottom left corner, and every year Leia Rose and Annie will add another one. Then we'll use the same sign every single year. Fun!

While I was making dinner, Dorothy and Toto watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on our computer (because our DVD player is on the fritz). I think I smell yet another Halloween tradition!

I just love the dichotomy in this picture: Leia Rose carrying the huge basket, Brian carrying the tiny one. : )

This year we went Trick-or-Treating in Southern Village. Houses right next to each other, . . . but boy there were lots of stairs!!! This is the way Trick-or-Treating is supposed to be, though!!! There were hundreds of children milling about in costume. There were haunted houses with fog machines and bones strewn in the yards with scary music playing. There was one particular house that Leia took one look at and, . . . walked right by. Ha!
And there was this one guy dressed as the Grim Reaper sitting with a bowl of candy. Every time someone tried to take one, he'd jump at them. (But he was smart enough not to try that with Leia Rose. But she WAS brave enough to go back to exchange what she got! (I couldn't believe it, . . . this from the kid who is afraid of Yoda!)
Leia Rose was amazingly brave the whole evening. She was the most proud of walking through the "Sams Haunted House" (which honestly wasn't very scary). Leia called it that because she remembered seeing it in Sams last year, and was afraid of it then.

This is what Leia Rose was waiting for, and this was the reason why she secretly kept asking to go home (ha!): the night of chaos & candy eating! This is one of the two nights a year where Mamma lets Leia Rose have all the candy she wants and stay up as late as she wants. Woo hoo!!! In fact, the two sugar-high phrases of the night were as follows: "Look how fast I can run, Mamma!" and "Mamma, look how fast I can hop!" The candy rule this year was thus: only open the candy you are going to eat. (This rule resulted in Leia Rose spitting out/throwing away lots of half-sucked/half-eaten candy. Hey, there's no better rule!!!) Of course, eating the candy was "old hat" for our Leia Rose, . . . . . . But Annie wasn't sure what to do at first, . . .
. . . Until she met her first love: A Now & Later. : ) (A nice, chokeable, Now & Later. *sigh*) Her favorite thing to do the whole night was to take a wrapped candy, put it in her mouth, immediately take it out, and show it to Mamma emphatically. Hence the pictures.
(By the way, in case you're wondering, the pants had to come off and be washed because of an encounter with the acrylic paint on our Halloween sign.)

This whole "look-what-I-have-Mamma!" thing is so precious! It never gets old for me. Never gets old. : )

And Leia Rose and I had another special event tonight! I told her that we could watch something Halloween related tonight, and she chose The Wizard of Oz!!! So we made popcorn, snuggled in front of our big-screen TV, (fast-forwarded the witch parts), and stayed up way too late (for Leia Rose past 11)!!! Yikes!!! Her comment the next day after school? "I was tired today, Mamma." No surprise there. ; )