Halloween

Well, my favorite holiday has come and gone. And this year, I was actually okay with that, because I was really looking forward to getting the presidential election over and done with! Of course, it's no surprise to any of you that I'm ecstatic at how that turned out.



We built Halloween up for Emily throughout all of October. It felt different this year than in past years because we were actually home for once (the last two Octobers we spent significant amounts of time on the East Coast). Since we were here the whole time, we decorated more than before, and we talked a lot about Halloween and what fun it would be.



Emily decided early on that she was going to be a bad witch. Not a good one; a bad one. I had already bought her a dog costume last year (I like to go to Target and other stores and take advantage of their post-holiday sales), but she wasn't very interested in it, which worked out anyway because it was actually a bit too small. (Since I bought it a year ago, I guess I didn't make a good judgment as to how big she'd be this year. To be fair, though, up until now, she'd always been pretty small for her age. It wasn't until recently -- summer? -- that she's caught up significantly.) So I fortunately found a really cute witch costume at Target that I felt was a reasonable price. I've decided I have a pretty good eye for Emily's costumes; I've been pleased with most of the results.

Incidentally, the costume is that of a good witch, not a bad one. She didn't seem to mind, thankfully. Once she put it on, she did switch from saying, "I'm a bad witch" to "I'm a good witch"! Pretty funny. :-) I love all the sparkles on the costume, and all the black and silver. The long, black, sparkly sleeves are pretty cool, in my opinion. We applied glittery lotion-type stuff on her face, neck and hands; and we also applied deep red lipstick and nail polish. I think she looked beautiful! (But then again, she always does.)



As for Miss Leah, I bought her costume last year. It was sorta warm this Halloween (last year was nice and cool, but we weren't quite so lucky this time), so we decided to only let her wear her costume for pictures and that was it. See for yourself what she was. Aren't we cruel?! ;-) Seriously though, she was adorable.






Surprisingly, Emily pooped out on us fairly early. She's typically a night owl like her mommy and daddy, but she woke up so early Halloween morning, that I think it kinda messed with her. She was very excited at the thought of going trick-or-treating with Daddy, but only a few houses into it, she declared she was ready to go home and watch Jack (as in Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas). She loves Jack!



I admit I was a little bummed. I asked her if we could leave her costume on a little while longer so others could see it, but she was very ready to get into her jammies. Oh, well. It was good while it lasted. Sister, Ken and Grandma were all here helping us celebrate, which was nice. (Grandpa was in Las Vegas, helping out with the Obama campaign.) The biggest bummer of all, though, is that we don't really get a lot of trick-or-treaters around here. We think it's because our neighborhood's made up of a lot of older, retired (military?) folks and therefore there aren't a whole lot of chillins around. Grandma was pretty surprised -- she commented on how few trick-or-treaters we were getting because they get quite a few more in their neighborhood. That's okay... I mean, we get some. I just wish we'd get more.

Stephen and I also enjoyed going next door for Lee's traditional Halloween dinner: spider dogs (hot dogs shaped like spiders) and homemade chili. Yum! Lee puts a ton of huge chunks of meat in her chili which makes it very tasty.

It was a good evening. This is my favorite time of year. And of course, Tuesday made it even better. :-)


[Click the small pictures to enlarge.]
[Click here to see our Halloween set on Flickr. (The set includes past Halloweens, too.)]
[Click here to only see the photos from this year's Halloween.]