Trick or Treating

Since we've already gone to 2, yep 2 Halloween events already, and since it was a really cold night out there tonight, we weren't real sure that we were going to do much to celebrate this, the actual night of Halloween. But, somewhere along the way (I blame our neighbor girl Savannah) Brianna figured out the whole concept of trick-or-treating. So, the past 2 days or so she's been saying, "I wanna trick-or-treat!" Well, we felt like we would be scrooges not to let her have her fun on Halloween night. We tossed around a few ideas but ultimately decided just to cruise the halls of our own apartment complex. Actually this building is pretty duddy when it comes to Halloween...not very many doors with signs to welcome the candy crusaders. But, we figured, oh well, we don't want her to have tons of candy anways and we really don't want to deal with a tiny, cold, sick kiddo. So we started off pacing the hallways. (I don't think I've ever walked around this whole place...it's huge! I was even getting tired by the end of our walk.) I think there were only about 10 doors we ended up getting to knock on in the whole place. Bree still made a pretty good haul though since every place we went to was really glad to get rid of all their candy and would give huge handfuls of their stash. All in all it turned out pretty perfectly...we stayed warm, Bree got a decent amount of candy but not too much, it wasn't overtiring for her (Daddy carried her most the time) and, most importantly, she had a lot of fun (and looked adorable doing it!).

Here she is, Buzz herself, off for her big night of trick-or-treating.

 

Knock, knock! Trick or Treat!
Bree actually did really well at trick-or-treating for a 2 yr. old. When people would open the door she'd say "I'm trick or treating!" which is pretty darn good. Then, when prompted, she would even say thank you after getting her little treat. We were pretty proud parents.

 

I had to help her knock on the doors though since she was knocking like a butterfly. :)

 

Here she is, tromping along, looking for the next door to knock on...

 

Sometimes she would even let me hold her hand as we walked along. It was the highlight of my Halloween!

 

That's one happy little trick-or-treater!

 

Once we got home Bree immediately raced in and started dumping out the contents of her little pumpkin basket. I guess some things in life need no instructions! :) She was so excited to get to see what all she had gotten in there.

 

And here she is surveying her loot...

 

Yep, she made a haul..check out this spread!

 

Then we had to call and wish our Grammies a Happy Halloween and tell them all about our big evening of trick or treating.

Naturally, she had to taste a few things. So, we let her have a few of her candies. She liked Nerds okay, but after a few bites of the Laughy Taffy she said, "It's too sticky! Here, you have it!" I think she also opened and licked on about 5 suckers but didn't finish a one of them. In this shot she's really enjoying her mini-bag of M&M's. As for the rest of it, it's going to get rationed out one candy at a time for the next however long it lasts. But, as for tonight she ran around on a sugar high for about a half an hour and we had a bit of a time getting her to bed. Ah yes...the joys of a childhood Halloween!

Carving Pumpkins

Finally, just in the nick of time, almost too late for the season we carved our pumpkins last night! We've just been so busy lately with all our outings and such that we haven't had time to sit down and do them. (Well, the truth is maybe we have had a moment or two when we could have carved them before now I suppose, but I've been feeling a little bit under the weather with a cold and haven't known if I had the energy to clean up the mess afterwards. Actually, as I type this I still have pumpkin guts strewn around my kitchen yet today, the day after. Guess it's a good look for Halloween. Okay, man! This is getting to be a long aside..back to the point...) But, at last we did sit down and get our pumpkins carved. Bree thought it was pretty great of course. Anything where you can get messy and not get in trouble is right up a toddler's alley. She didn't quit get the whole concept though, while Trav and I drew faces on our pumpkins, Bree was using a dry-erase marker to scribble all over the front of one pumpkin. Then later she ended up trying to put the seeds and stuff back inside the pumpkin while I was trying to take them out. But, it's all about the experience right? She had a blast!

P.S. All right, don't worry family and die-hard fans, this won't be my last post today. Being that it's Halloween and all, I'll be back tonight to update the blog with Trick-or-Treating photos and stories...the things I do for you people! :)

And, here they are! Our pumpkins this year...
ta-da! The big one is Trav's, the kitty one, the smallest, is Bree's, and mine is the middle size, oddly shaped one on the end. (Of course, I really carved Bree's..not a bad kitty face eh?) Brianna thought they were great and was saying "This is the Daddy pumpkin, grrrr, (apparently the daddy pumpkin growls), this is the Kitty pumpkin, meow, (naturally) and this is Mommy's pumpkin." (I guess mine doesn't say anything.)

After we lit the pumpkins Brianna got all excited. (I don't think she remembers her last Halloween so...) Here she is peeking inside them to see their "pumpkin fires." (Apparently, we've missed adding the word candle to our vocabulary so far.) :) Oh, wait, you could probably see the pumpkins better if I turn the lights off...

...there! That's better! Oooh..aaah.

Cheese!
Counting the pumpkins that makes 4 big grins in this picture. Check out Bree's Halloween shirt she's wearing special for "All Hallow's Eve." It's got a jack o'lantern, a witch, and a black cat on it! She's not wearing pants though since she decided those were optional for a messy pumpkin carving session.

Here's Bree doing her Vanna White impression: "See our lovely pumpkins!" Really though I think she was patting her kitty pumpkin on the head. The monkey sitting there on the daddy pumpkin was a gift from Savannah, who had come over to visit last night.

Sharing a mischievious smile with Jack (O' Lantern).

Just before bedtime, Bree helped blow out the "pumpkin fires." She went off to sleep talking about Halloween, pumpkins and candy. (Which as for the latter is odd since we're not big candy-for-kids fans and we haven't even talked about that much as a major component of this holiday. But it's something she seems to have picked up on anyways. I guess the whole candy-kids combo is inevitable this time of year, oh well!)