Happy Halloween

Halloween is a pretty big deal for my little girls.  The talk about what to "go as" is a pretty serious discussion in our house.  Julia usually narrows it down between two different possibilities early on and flip flops from one to the other for a long time.  This year Julia chose Cinderella and we just so happened to have Cinderella's Wedding Gown from our trip to Disney in 2011 and it still fit.  Lucky me ;-)  Then we went to the mall and she fell in love with some butterfly wings and decided she would go as Cinderella with wings.  She looked adorable!  I know, I know, I'm not the most unbiased person.

Emma usually goes with the flow.  She likes to dress up but hasn't really shown much interest in choosing her own costume so it's pretty much been whatever we have in the house but not this year.  In August we were shopping at TJ Maxx for who knows what and she spotted a rack of Halloween costumes and did her happy wheelchair dance and squeal until I took her over to check them out.  That is once I figured out what was making her so happy!  She wanted this candy corn fairy costume and was over the moon with it and so I bought it for her.  Of course.  It was the first time Emma has pretty much ever asked for something when we weren't giving her a choice between two items.  She spotted it, got me to take notice and then smiled all the way to the register.

The children from our block went trick or treating as a group like they did last year.  The ladies went with the children and the guys stayed to give out treats.  Our one neighbor had a bonfire and everyone met there to give out candy for the houses.  It's a great way to enjoy the night and the children have SO MUCH FUN!  The adults do, too.  We really love this neighborhood!

This year we recorded Julia's voice saying Trick or Treat onto a Big Mac type program on the iPad and   Emma was then able to just touch the screen to say Trick or Treat. It was a big hit with the children - they were happy to hear Emma say trick or treat - and the people at the houses we visited.  I think Emma liked having her button.  The only thing that wasn't ideal is her external speaker stopped working and we had to rely on the built-in speaker, which isn't very loud :-(  I think we'll use her birthday money to buy a better external speaker - if anyone has one they like, please let me know in the comments section.  She had a logitech and it stopped working after only about 20 uses!

Julia's favorite treats are the lollipops.  She did not get that from me or Chris.  Emma was all smiles when she received chocolate.  She had not met a piece of chocolate she didn't love.  She does get that from me.  One house was giving out sodas.  The children were running to that house and yelling to each other they were getting soda.  It was so funny!

Hurricane Sandy came through town but, thankfully, our neighborhood was mostly unaffected so we had Halloween as usual.  During the storm we did put on the Halloween music we borrowed from the library and carved a pumpkin.   It was the first time Chris and the girls ever carved a pumpkin.  Yikes!  How did it come about that I'm the only one in the family that ever carved a pumpkin?  Emma loved how messy it was, Julia loved tracing the stencil onto the pumpkin and helping me toast the pumpkin seeds for our snack, and Chris was surprised at how hard, yet satisfying, it was to carve.  We all agreed it was a lot of fun and will do another one or maybe two next year.

We wish everyone a Happy Halloween!