The Cheerleader & Snow White

Katelyn & Alyssa had a great Halloween. Katelyn wanted to be a cheerleader (it was all about the pom-poms, but in the end she discovered they hindered her ability to get candy, so Mike and I got to hold the pom poms so she could hold her bucket and grab the candy). Alyssa insisted on being Snow White. I'm not sure where the idea came from, but she knew exactly what she wanted.

The girls got to wear their costumes on a number of occasions. First, Katelyn's school had Fall Family Fun Night and the girls got to dress up and go to a dance. They also had a book fair, a book walk (instead of a cake walk), family pictures, craft activities, cupcakes to eat, etc. Katelyn and Alyssa didn't want to do anything but hang out in the gym and dance to the music. I finally got Katelyn to go to the book walk during the last five minutes of the event, but whatever -- they were happy. Alyssa met another snow white (another younger sibling of a school age child I think) and the two were dancing and playing together for quite a bit of the evening.

Then Alyssa got to wear her costume at her daycare on Friday morning for a little Halloween parade and then I went and got the girls that afternoon and took them to my work for some trick or treating. My work has been doing this the last two years. The folks down in the clerks office have been having a great time getting dressed up and my kids had a wonderful time trick-or-treating between offices. I mean, where else can you spend an hour, make the rounds on two floors and fill a bucket three-quarters full of candy? Even the people that took off at four that day left bowls full of candy outside their doors for the kids. So ultimately, we didn't need to go out on Saturday to trick-or-treat, but of course the kids wanted to get dressed up again. In fact, they were so excited, they didn't go down for early naps like I planned - so we didn't get to take the girls to my bosses house to do a little early trick or treating in the late afternoon. Instead, they got up from their naps close to five and we fed them and got them out the door.

We went around three of four blocks in my cousin's neighborhood and they filled their buckets about three-quarters full again. A few of the houses scared the kids. One house had a guy waiting at the door howling and moaning. When the kids got close he introduced them to his pet spider, Henry, a big plastic black spider with red glowing eyes that jumped down the door and bounced back up. It scared the kids -- Alyssa wouldn't go anywhere near the guy to get some candy. Katelyn was willing to go get the candy but she kept an eye on the big black spider. Alyssa was pretty adamant that she didn't want to see Henry again. She was pretty certain she wanted to quit trick or treating, but we talked her into continuing on since we encountered Henry toward the end of the first block. But every few minutes she would say something about Henry and would require some reassurance that Henry was at his house and wasn't coming anywhere near us.

So each of the kids has a gallon ziploc bag full of candy to eat (or for Mike and I to eat :) -- however you want to look at it). Alyssa still has her red shoes from her costume and insists on wearing them daily, so Halloween lingers on in some ways with the sugar and the sparkly shoes.

I hope everyone else enjoyed their little princesses, ghosts and goblins as much as we did!