Halloween happiness

Always the drama, leading up to Halloween. First of all, and most importantly, costume choice. What is Gabrielle going to be? And what about Isaac this year? He probably can't tell me what he wants to dress up as, but he sure can tell me what he doesn't want to wear. How many costumes will I have to return to the store?

Given the potential for disaster, it all ended up going very smoothly this year. Gabrielle had been talking about being grapes for many months. Easy peasy, I thought, just blow up a bunch of purple balloons and attach them (somehow?) to her shirt. So leading up to Halloween, I kept asking her every couple of days and she kept saying grapes. Grapes, grapes, grapes. And then one day she said fairy. Well OK then.

I went to a secondhand store and found a tiger costume for Isaac. He loved it. Oh and did I mention he especially loved it when he realized that dressing up in the thing meant people would give him stuff. He really loved that part and has been wanting to go trick or treating every night since.

This is funny. At this house, the person just held out a big bowl of chocolate bars. The kids actually combed through them, looking for ones they wanted. Seriously, do you guys know the difference between a Caramilk and a Mars bar?

My little fairy: one of only a hundred or so we saw that night. Well, some of the fairies we saw were actually princesses, or princess fairies, not just regular fairies, so maybe there weren't that many fairies out. I'm just saying there was alot of tulle and wings out on the street.

Our little man, walking the streets and checking out his loot. He was pretty great at trick or treating - really exceeding our expectations. People would open the door and he would yell "trick or treat"! Then if they said "oh, a tiger" he'd say "tiger, yeah, roar!" and then open his bag up wide and smile.

There were some good haunted houses. I took Gabrielle and Isaac past this house every day after school leading up to Halloween. We would examine the decorations and touch the various ghouls and goblins and determine they weren't real. It seemed to work - I don't think they were quite as terrified as they might have been otherwise.

Even tigers need to be carried by the end of the night...