Pink Princess and Scary Spider

We have had quite a Halloween celebration this year that lasted the entire month of October. When Myka asked to be a princess for Halloween my hesitation mostly revolved around the weather. However, when she was invited to two inside parties before Halloween was even near, I decided we could get our money's worth out of a princess costume even if we had to find something warmer for the official event (and by "finding something" and "warmer" I mean "digging out" last year's "poodle costume"...)
We had a fun time finding a princess outfit (forget the Halloween costumes, we headed to the dress up aisle in the toy section), finding something to go under it to keep it from being too scratchy(first pair of long underwear), curling her hair (for the first party at least), wearing earrings (for the first 3 minutes of the first party) and dancing around like a princess (always). And all were happy with the results, especially the princess, who is, of course, the most important.

Eli's costume ended up being very easy, as a friend loaned me her son's spider costume from last year so he could move on to being an octopus. (She has a thing for toddlers with lots of legs...) But catching the spider for a minute so I could get a picture was kind of like when a real spider finds that one spot in the corner where your shoe just doesn't quite fit and you can't squish it no matter how hard you try. So we have a few shots on the run and many memories of his 8 legs flailing about as he went about his business oblivious to the fact that he just sprouted 6 extra appendages.And as I predicted, the weather was no where near the 80 degrees we had last year, so we were all very bundled as we headed downtown to do the Main Street Trick or Treat before the real event around our neighborhood.

Myka was good at remembering her "Trick or Treat"'s and "Thank You"'s this year which was fun to see, but was a bit put off that most of the merchants were too cold to care or remember their "you're welcome"'s.


Eli just didn't really care in general...

And for the 3rd time in this house (we closed on the house November 3rd of 2006, so we just missed Halloween here that year) we have our picture by the tree before Kurt and Myka headed around the loop for "more free candy". Again, these pictures are getting harder and harder to take...

I'm not sure if it was the weather or the flu but we had a much smaller contingent than normal come by our door this year, and I'm sure the rest of the neighborhood noticed the same thing. That might be why it appears that many of the houses were a little extra generous this year as they tried to get rid of their candy to whoever may be coming by. As I was putting Eli to bed and Kurt and Myka started inspecting/sorting the loot they had literally dragged home, this is what I found when I came back downstairs:

I'm waiting for the day when she remembers counting exactly 7 packs of skittles but has only eaten 4 and there are no more left. Or snickers. Or m&m's. Or peanut butter cups...