Trick or Treating

We continued this year with our two year tradition with our Bible Study family.  We headed out to Hudson, enjoyed some dinner, got dressed up (all of us) and headed around the Hudson Heights circle. This year was the first year that I didn't get to pick the costume... Madison was set on being a princess from day one.  Eliott actually wanted to be a princess too :), but we then convinced him that he was more suitable as a prince.  Then we changed it to a frog (for the princess and the frog), but ended up going with this cute and cozy giraffe costume.  Right before we headed out, Stacey comes up with several adult-sized costumes and I immediately took the clown.  I never looked in the mirror and after looking at the pictures I now know why my husband was embarrassed to walk with me and my kids looked at me like they had never seen me before.  On the plus side... it was plenty roomy for this growing belly of mine and for awhile I forgot I was preggo :).

We had 'practiced' trick-or-treating' many times at home so the kids both new what they were supposed to do and say as they knocked on the door.  The first door we walked up to, our two kids were in the back of the pack, checking out the situation before they jumped in.  Madison, not being one to jump right into something new, hesitated as all the kids in front of her grabbed the goods out of the big bucket.  She turned around, looked at me, and dead serious says, "Mom... I want some."  It was as if she wasn't sure what to say or do, new she didn't want to talk to anyone she didn't know, but the pull of that big bucket of candy was just to much to keep her in her shell.  I told her that all she needed to do was walk up there and she would get some... she braved it and was pretty pumped about the whole situation.  Let's just say she warmed up quickly to the idea and was skipping through yards and grabbing gobs of candy by the end.

Eliott was quite the trooper as well.  He was ready and rarin' to go at 6:00 and was keeping up with the big kids.  He was a little small to barge through the crowd and had a hard time finding the front of the pack.  The first several houses he tried to give candy from his pumpkin back to the person at the door, but he also caught on quite quickly.  He walked most of the way and stayed with the crew up until the very end when he found a spot in the Williams' stroller with a big tootsie pop... and was pretty content.

We ended the night checking out our loads of candy and a couple of happy, worn-out kids... and clown and race car driver :)