Trick or Treat! ~Trina & Family

I have come to find very quickly that any holiday may be just as exciting for me as it is for anyone else in our household.  Give me a reason to bake, cook, decorate, or just plain get festive and my excited juices start flowing.   For example, when my office decided to actually dress up for Halloween, I was pumped, even though it was only a week till the big day and I only had the weekend to find my costume.  Anyone knows it is never a bright idea to wait till the weekend before to find anything.  Plus, I’m a planner.  I like having my stuff ready to go.  My kids’ costumes, Ariel from The Little Mermaid for Callie and a triceratops for Clayton, had been purchased a month before.

But, determined to find my perfect costume, I set off that Saturday with two young toddlers in tow.  Just as suspected, no costumes left.  I drug my very fussy kids to every store, hoping to find the perfect costume.  Finally…after many candy bribes and scoldings; I found what I was looking for.  A non-hooker Dorothy.  Hooray! 

I woke up in anticipation October 31^st for the fun to begin.  My kids wore little orange shirts with jack-o-lanterns on them.  We’d baked cookies and cupcakes the day before with colorful frosting and little Halloween décor. 

My friend Amber has a little shin-dig every year that we attend that’s in our old neighborhood, great food and wine, and of course great friends.  We look forward to it every year and Callie of course acts like a kid on Christmas; she loves dressing up.  You can imagine how disappointed I was however, when my little one and ½ year-old wouldn’t dress up.  I finally got him to wear the head-part of the dinosaur (bribery of course) for this photo, but that was it.  Then, once we headed trick-or-treating, he was going to sit in the stroller, thank you very much!  There’d be none of this talking to strangers stuff.  And when his small collection of nerds ran out…he was throwing a fit and ready to go home.

So while my daughter and I rallied, my husband headed home early with our son.  Callie, usually the head of the pack with her little BFF (Amber’s daughter) Audrey, had no problem knocking on people’s doors she’d never met and demanding candy.  Their cute little buckets were nearly overflowing by the time they were actually ready to head home.

Nights like this never turn out the way you imagine.  However, I realized as I bustled about after my little four-year-old with the bright red wig; this is what life is truly about.  Just seeing the excitement on her face, and her joy in doing something so fun—surrounded by great friends and family.  I’ll take it, even if it includes running around in a hideous Dorothy costume with huge, gaudy red slippers. 

*Make sure you read Leah’s story, hilarious and endearing as always, in the prior post from last night.

~Trina           

Happy Halloween! ~ Leah & Family

“So the first time you hear the concept of Halloween, when you're a kid, remember the first time you even heard about it, it's like... your brain can't even... "what is this ?! Who's giving out candy, someone's giving out candy?! Who is giving out this candy?! Everyone that we know is just giving out candy?!!! I gotta be a part of this, take me with you, I wanna do it, I'll do anything that they want...! I can wear that.” –Jerry Seinfeld

This year, leading up to the big day, my boys (at least Luke, who will be three years old one week from today) seemed to be getting the concept.  We dress up.  We go knock on doors.  And strangers-yes, the same strangers we are not supposed to talk to-are gonna give us candy.  And, of course, we say thank you.  Pretty straightforward.  Very exciting!

We were invited to the home of my son’s best girlfriend on the ever-enchanting Daniel Island.  The two preschoolers seem to be the boy-girl version of BFFs these days, so we wouldn’t have passed on the invite to hang out with her and her older sis on this most bewitching night of the year.  They all play nice, even with little Zealand in tow.  I’d be remised if I didn’t mention that my friend Allie, the girls’ mommy, offered to make dinner and I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t pass that up.

For days the weather channel predicted rain (gasp!) for Monday evening.  My husband pointed out a day or two ago that it doesn’t rain on Daniel Island…a.k.a. Pleasantville.  Sure enough, 6:30 p.m. rolled around and the few clouds parted to sunny skies-not a damp street or sidewalk to be found.  Following an amazing mea006C by Allie…feta salad, gourmet turkey burgers complete with avocado and red tomato slices, and potatoes that were the essence of delectability, we set out for our trick or treating adventure. 

Including a friend of Allie’s daughter, the Queen of Halloween (she created the name and designed her stylish costume), we set out for our candy hunt with a doctor, witch, princess and Anaken Skywalker from Star Wars. 

This outing was a dream come true for me.  Watching my sons in costume run up ahead of my husband and I, shrieking with excitement as they grabbed the hands of their little friends, made my entire year! In this pristine tree-lined neighborhood, I smiled from ear to ear as I balanced the camera while making sure they weren’t running off into the streets.  At door #1, they already had it down.  Luke, my extravert, had no qualms about marching up the steps to the front door, knocking and facing the creature/mommy/retiree behind each door.  “Trick or treat?” He watched wide-eyed as candy dropped one by one into his bucket.  “Thank you!”  Of course, my boy made me proud!  And it didn’t take Zealand long to figure out the game. 

Butterflies, zombies, Super Mario and even a jellyfish swarmed past us.  As it got darker, the big kids were coming out and costumes, scarier.  My husband and I were now taking turns carrying our 22-month-old up the stairs.  Until…we got to the house all of the kids in the whole neighborhood had been buzzing about…the spooky house.  It was beautiful.  Lit up in orange and white lights, cobwebs, massive spiders, giant snakes, and a skeleton who spoke in a spooky tongue inciting a laugh just from his lunatic laugh.  I held my boys’ hands as we made our way down their long path of doom.  Wouldn’t you know it?  A nice young lady, sweet as pie, handing out more candy.  Spooky isn’t so bad, after all!  We hit a few more houses on the trek back to Allie’s.  This being our third Halloween since Luke was born, and so perfect.  I am looking forward to many more!  Now that they’re in bed, I’m going to find all the blue tootsie rolls!!   ~ Leah