Trick or Treating

Mark and I started talking to Turner about what she wanted to be for Halloween back in late summer.  We showed her costumes online, and foolishly assumed she'd choose to be a character with whom she's familiar through books or tv shows.  We suggested Strawberry Shortcake and figured we'd have a slam dunk easy decision...no.  We even bribed her to be what we wanted her to be which was the Statue of Liberty...no.

We stopped in Party City one day and she pointed emphatically at a costume and said, "that's the one I want."  It was THIS costume.  Seriously?  She didn't even know who Bat Girl was, what she did, etc.  I have no explanation for it...  So we visited Party City several more times to try to steer toward more familiar things - Olivia, Dora, Belle, an Angry Bird...anything but Bat Girl!  Thankfully we passed some pretty butterfly wings one day and she said she wanted to be a butterfly - the wings were extra huge and she had to walk sideways through doors, but it ended up being a pretty cute homemade costume.

This year Halloween went on for years it seemed...wear costume to dance, wear costume to fall festival, wear costume to school.  By the time actual trick or treating rolled around we were ready for it to be done!  We are fortunate though that our particular area of our neighborhood is what I call "old school" trick or treating - where parents walk around with their children from house to house.  (As opposed to the people who load up in flatbed trailers filled with hay and ride through suburban neighborhoods blocking traffic and causing danger.)

Our first stop was at our neighbor's house to visit Anderson, Turner's best little buddy who lives behind us.  Once they saw one another they decided we'd just all go together and that was SUCH a fun experience!!

You can look at my sweet girl's eyes and see she wasn't feeling well.  This was the beginning of  a three week battle with a nasty cold that wouldn't relent!

These two are a mess!!

They would just take off running across anyone's yard - the butterfly and the Jedi!

And we ate a little along the way!

Once we got home she wanted to pass out candy for a while, and parked herself in full costume on her piano stool to wait.