A Sweet Halloween

Halloween snuck up on me this year and was starting to give me some real, procrastinator-style nightmares.  A week and a half before the Big Candy Day, I still had no costumes for the girls.  This is very unlike me and I was starting to panic - especially since Lucy and Emma kept changing their minds about what they wanted to be.  I learned on Lucy's first Halloween that all of the good kids costumes are gone by Labor Day.  Thank goodness for our neighborhood children's resale shop.  One afternoon while the girls were napping I saw a pair of the cutest Halloween costumes posted on the resale shop's Facebook page.  I held my breath as I clicked on the images to see what sizes they were.  It was my lucky day, as they were exactly Lucy and Emma's sizes!  Now if only they didn't get snatched up by some other sister duo before my kids were up from their naps!  As soon as the girls were up we raced downtown and much to my delight, the pair of costumes were still available.  I switched gears from offense to defense.  Now that the prize was in my hands, I had to convince the girls that they wanted to be this lovely, ready-to-go, fit-over-winter-coats, perfectly sized, sweet-dreams-are-made-of-these, check off my to-do list costumes.  And did I mention they were on sale AND I had a coupon?  Here is my Cupcake and my Ice Cream Cone, looking very sweet in their Mama-Cashed-in-on-Some-Good-Karma Halloween costumes, sprinkling their sugar at our annual Farmer's Market Trick or Treating.

I love taking the kids Trick or Treating at the farmer's market.  After visiting with the vendors all summer, it's almost like taking my kids to see neighbors, who give the proper oohs and aahs as the kids model their costumes.  Plus, they usually give out really great treats - organic lollipops, apples, mini pumpkins and homemade soap.  I would be content if this was it for our Halloween festivities.  That's not to say however, that we didn't enjoy a couple more Halloween events.  Here are the girls below, excited to wear their costumes to dance class the day before Halloween.

Halloween costumes may fall on my shoulders every year so it is only fair that pumpkin carving falls on Will's capable shoulders.  Here the girls are below helping Will carve up the pumpkins.

This is the first Halloween that Lucy has started to get into the spookier side of things.  Here she is below, making her scariest faces.

Emma is really only into the holiday for the candy and can take or leave the spookiness.  I caught Emma in the candy bowl we had prepared for the Trick or Treaters below.

And here are the girls ready to go out on Halloween!  It was an unusually mild evening as far as Michigan weather goes in late October, however it steadily rained.  We went with friends of ours and the four kids didn't seem too phased by the precipitation.  At some point Lucy told us that she was "miserable" and ready to go home but would take off running as soon as she saw the next porch light on.

Here are the girls below, sorting, trading and sampling their candy treasure.

The day after Halloween the resale shop that I bought the costumes from held a contest on Facebook for the cutest Halloween costumes purchased at their store.  We are proud to say that the girls were one of the winners!  Here they are below, holding their gift certificate that they won.  We already used it to buy Lucy's Christmas dress.  My good Karma continues!

We hope you had a sweet Halloween too!