Trick-Or-Treat

Once again, I had great hopes of doing a "themed" Halloween. I figured Cole could pick his costume and then I could steer Emily in a related direction. Once again, Cole had other ideas. A while back, he decided he wanted to be the Star Wars character Jango Fett. I kept waiting for him to change his mind, as kids usually do, but after a month of no changing, I decided I was stuck. We've already done a Star Wars theme, so I decided he would once again have to be left out of the fun. (Sadly, I'm not sure he really cared!)
Just in case the yellow crocs weren't enough of a give away to tell you who it was. (Notice the serious bounty hunting face!)
Emily loves Tinkerbell right now and initially decided that was who she wanted to dress up as. However, not too long after that, she saw a cartoon that told the story of Little Red Riding Hood and changed her mind (I think the fact that she found a basket that looked like Red Riding Hood's helped sway her decision. She really hoped to put cookies in the basket!) She flipped back and forth several times until finally a week before Halloween I made her decide for sure. She settled on Little Red. (Good thing because she is pretty darn cute!)
I could handle that costume for Emily because then I could make Addy into the Big (or Little) Bad Wolf. This idea eventually morphed into the Wolf dressed up in Grandma's clothes. (Imagine what I could have done if I had more than a week! Ok, maybe not. I think I work better under pressure!)
Of course, I was a little worried at first that Addy wouldn't wear the costume. After I brought the fur home from the fabric store and laid it on the ground, Addy refused to go near it and would crawl 10 feet out of her way just to get around it. However, one thing about Addy (and most kids her age), she is very bribable. So, half a bag of goldfish later, we got her in the costume and she even cracked a smile or two!
The kids had a great time on Halloween. It's fun that they are getting to ages where they really enjoy it and I don't have to wonder why we go to all of the effort.
We started at a Trunk-or-Treat.
Addy learned to like her costume really fast once she realized that she got candy if she wore it! She decided to crawl like a wolf without my prompting even!
Then we moved on to the houses!
Our fun trick-or-treating group.
It used to be that a trip around the block was enough to satisfy my kids. But Cole is obviously growing up and he and his friends really got into it. So after a while, I took Emily and Addy home, while Chad stayed out with Cole.
Obviously the Big Bad Wolf was worn out from all of the fun. She fell asleep in the 3 blocks that it took to drive home. (I guess when you come down off the sugar high, you crash hard when you are 1)!
Emily used the time at home to line up and count her candy. I was cracking up when I realized what she was doing!
After the bigger kids finally wore out, they all came back to our house for hot chocolate! They were gone for much longer than I expected. I was glad that it was Chad who walked all that way with them.
What a night!