Halloween

The Halloween stores began to pop up around Labor Day and that's when Ella started asking me if we could decorate the house for Halloween - I said we at least needed to wait until it was October. So, we had fun decorating the first weekend in October.

With our little buddy Bones, dressed up as a pirate this year (in a costume that Mom made for Erin when she was little)

This video is from when Dad was visiting us. He was up in the front seat with Steve so I had fun with Ella in the backseat while she perfected her pumpkin balancing act.

Ella wanted to get a costume for Cory, and decided that she should be a magician wearing a tuxedo. I realized that Houdini is just the absolute perfect costume for Cory since she loves nothing more than a good escape followed by a big getaway. 

In this video, Ella wanted me to make a video of her 'pretending to do a TV show'... staring Ella!

And her very own rendition of the dancing Boogie Man skeleton dolls!

 Ella wanted to pick out her costume early and decided to be a witch. One of the Halloween catalogs came in the mail and she became completely focused on a costume for a Voodoo Doll. She has no idea what a voodoo doll is, and even called it a doo-doo doll, but for whatever reason, became extremely convinced that this was the costume for her. I thought the idea of a voodoo doll is just too morbid and mean-spirited. I even explained the concept to her, as best as I understand it, that it's about trying to hurt someone else by sticking pins in this doll. I thought for sure once she knew what it really was, and how unsavory a costume a voodoo doll would be, she would change her mind. 

Well that didn't happen and she still had her heart set on it. One day while she was in school I put the catalog in the recycling bin in the garage, thinking once it was out of sight it'd be out of mind. That didn't work either and when Dad came to visit she told me she had to show him the picture, grilled me on where the catalog was, and I had to go dig it out of the recycling bin. 

Between Dad and Steve, I began to have a change of heart toward the voodoo doll and eventually told Ella she could have it, and thought that it's just a costume and not as big of a deal as I was making it. She was extremely excited. That night we went on the computer to order it. And as luck (or divine intervention :)) would have it - they were completely not available - they didn't have any sizes at all, it just said Not Available. After that, she decided she wanted to be a pink skeleton instead. SOLD!

Here she is as the skeleton for her friend's party the weekend before Halloween, complete with pink hair.

The party was great - lots of good times for the kids and catch-up and talk time for the moms!

She got to dress up again on the 30th for her kindergarten class party. I had a work trip and didn't get back from Washington DC until that night, but Mom sent me some pictures of Ella that morning, and her teacher posted these to the class blog

At last the big day finally arrived! Ready for school and looking adorable in her skeleton glasses

We got several inches of rain that day but luckily it stopped in the afternoon and saved our trick or treat plans.

All dressed up and ready to go

Sweet pair of witches!

We stopped at Alyssa's house to say hi and see her and meet her family

Ella had gotten a flyer in her folder about "Fright Fest" at the high school sponsored by the high school drama department, and had her heart completely set on going. She usually gets a big kick out of spooky stuff so I thought she'd enjoy it, and I assumed that if they put the flyers in the folders of the kindergartners, it must be appropriate for kindergarten. Ugh, I was very wrong. It was WAY too scary for her and she was terrified. I wanted it to end well for her, so I gave it a few minutes hoping she'd realize it was fake and just teenagers pretending but I could tell that wasn't going to happen, so we ended the tour early. I felt so bad, she was so scared and it was really just totally inappropriate for her. Mom and Glenn didn't realize we that Steve, Ella and I had ejected early, so they ended up getting stuck going through the whole thing. Luckily they could handle it :).  

After that, it was time for trick or treating!

Her first house, our favorite neighbors (Grammy and Grampy!)

We left Bones to man the candy on the porch while we went out in the neighborhood 

She'd been curious about this zombie decoration for a month and every time we drove into the neigborhood, always asked us to slow down driving so she can get a better look. She finally got to check it out up close!

Trick-or-treating crew

She got tired of walking after awhile and had a great new ride

Checking out her loot with Grampy at the end of the night

It was another great Halloween!