The Day We Finished Celebrating Halloween.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that Halloween is no long a day-long celebration.  It is more of a week long event of fun and celebrating.  This year was no exception.

This year our witch, Snow White and pumpkin got lots of great use out of their costumes.  We started out our celebrating with a fun party for the kids at our church.  We were able to bring along some of our best buddies, which made for an especially fun time.

The kids got to trick or treat, play games and do lots of fun activities.  Emily did not like the masks but the free flowing candy helped her work through her fear issues quickly. 

 

If those donuts would have been Krispy Kremes, I would have been all over that game.

Emily enjoyed the party and loved her candy, but she was sad when both things came to an end.  Going home and sorting through the buckets seemed to help her through it all.

During the week, the girls also got to dress up for dance class.  They had fun with their friends and loved getting to bust a move in their costumes.

To kick off Halloween weekend, we continued our tradition of going to the Halloween party at the library with our good friends, the Wills.

The kids all got to enjoy lots of games and some fun crafts.

On Halloween day the girls were excited for their class parties.  Brooke’s preschool party was so much fun… Emily was excited about it before we even got there.

One of the funniest and most disturbing parts of the day though was this “treat” that Miss Kristin made.  She had it sitting underneath the party table and my first thought was “What the #%&@ !!!”  It looked so nauseatingly real.  The kids were dying over it, so all of us moms decided to be brave and eat it, to show the kids how good it really was.  The cake was good but after my “prove a point” bite, I was done. 

Brooke really wanted to be Rapunzel but was willing to wear the Snow White costume that we had.  She was thrilled when she arrived at her pre-school party and discovered that two of her buddies were also dressed as Snow White.  She was so happy and said that she’s glad she waited to be Rapunzel.

At the end of her party, the kids sang some fun songs – Emily was enamored with the whole thing.

Katelyn’s party was a little different this year… instead of organized games and classroom activities, they have an all-grade party.  The kids can go from room to room and hang out with their buddies.  She still asked us to come by, so we brought by the food that we made and said hello.  Katelyn had a great time with her buddies and it was fun seeing her at such a grown up party.  I wasn’t ready for it, but am glad she was.  She said she liked last year’s party better but still had a great time this year.

After school it was finally time for some trick-or-treating.  We had an early dinner and they were ready to roll.  We met up with “little” Kyle and Kara and hit the streets.  I knew Emily would enjoy it, but I didn’t know she would be hooked immediately.  After door number one, she had the process down and realized the magic of the process… being cute while standing at a door = candy.

She would go to the door with the big kids and say "Halloween!"  The she'd say, "thank you thank you thank you thank you" until the candy entered her bag.  Then she would turn around and say “Yay!” followed by another “thank you.”

The kids had so much fun trick-or-treating together and Katelyn and Brooke loved showing Emily the ropes.  The only way we could get her to take her pumpkin hat off, was if Katelyn let her wear her witch hat.  They had fun inventorying their candy and Brooke traded away anything with nuts to Katelyn for her sticky (non-braces friendly) candy and Emily was happy to take all the suckers.

 

Here is a video of Emily trick-or-treating.  Please note that when I am talking to Kyle and I sound like I am talking to a 9 year old, I AM.  In the video, I am talking to “little” Kyle about getting more candy, not encouraging my 39 year old husband to trick or treat.  Also, take note of the chocolate on Emily’s face at the end of video when she is passing out candy… that is a sure sign of a good night.

Emily Trick-or-Treating - 2011