Halloween is honestly not my favorite holiday. In fact, as a teacher it's one of the days I dread the most of the whole year. Kids hyper with the excitement, dealing with costumes, students on sugar highs, parades, dressing up myself (when I'm not a fan), etc. It's exhausting. Usually I come home from work, toss on some comfy clothes, and settle in for a comfortable relaxing evening because we never get trick-or-treaters on our road. I haven't had a trick-or-treater in over 10 years.
This year was different. We still didn't have trick-or-treaters but this year Lille did Halloween so we all did Halloween. She decided she wanted to be a fire fighter. It all started a month ago with a fire fighter hat .... Lil got one for free at the Topsfield Fair. She loved it. She even wore it to church the day after she got it. The pastor's wife gave her a book about a little girl who's dad was a fire fighter. Lillie thought her rain boots looked like fireman's boots. Then George remembered that Liam had a rain coat that looked just liked a fireman's coat. We asked to borrow it and it all started coming together.
We decided to take her over to our nephews house so they could trick-or-treat together (again ... not great location here for it). He is a trick-or-treating pro, because he's 3. This was her first time. We were SURE that we'd take her to a handful of houses and after about 15 minutes we'd be headed back home. Oh how wrong we were. We were in for the loooong haul.
Lillie's costume trial run last Monday. Playing in the puddles outside. There's something about the pants in the boots that just doesn't scream fire fighter to me. She needed pants that went over the boots but she didn't have any.
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| Notice the backward hat. She could NOT be convinced that the long part went in the back. She wanted to wear it like a baseball cap. |
This morning I dug through the drawer and miraculously found a pair I had forgotten about that would go over the boots. Then this afternoon ... around 5pm .... I had the brainstorm that she needed stripes on the bottom to really MAKE the outfit but how was that going to happen???
Notice the time ... 5:10 ... masking tape found, finishing the costume at the last minute. I also realized around the same time that she didn't have a bag to carry her treats in so I whipped that together with an extra paper bag, markers, tape, and some construction paper from my parents house that I intended to take to school but never made it to school this year. Nothing like doing it all at the last minute but I think it came together really well. Next year we'll know what to expect and be a little more prepared for this. I hope. Miraculously we still made it out of the house and started our trick-or-treating next door by 5:30.
1st stop. Grandma & PopPop
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| Reflective tape was both awesome and horrible for a Halloween costume. It was awesome for seeing her in the dark. It was awful for trying to take night time pictures. It was impossilbe to use flash because all you could see was the tape. |
Then it was off to Liam's where Lil had her first, and only real fright of the night, when she saw Liam for the first time. He was dressed as a ghost and when he said boo she backed away from him. He had to say hi a few more times before she recognized his voice and settled down.
Then we were off and she collected her candy like a champ. She was very brave and even walked up to a few houses without Liam. She did a pretty good job remembering to say "trick-or-treat", "Thank you!" and "Happy Halloween!" She lasted about an hour and did most of the walking herself. We made a few specific stops in the truck on the way home too.
By the time we got home she was spent. I took a quick picture and then she decided she was done and started peeling off her layers.
All in all it was a great night ... exhausting ... but a great night and she had a blast. I might even get more excited about Halloween next year seeing how much fun she had with it this year.
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