Halloween Recap

Boy, did we have fun last night! The whole evening was full of moments of note. But first, some pictures!

Spider Man flings his webs!

And he's doing something her, too, but I'm not sure what!

Yes, it's actually warm enough on October 31 to eat a picnic outside for lunch! Note: Little Miss is a witch here.

Our annual annual Halloween picture on the steps. Yes, Little Miss is now a princess. But not just any princess. She's the golden flying princess. With the tiara that I ended up wearing halfway through the night. I'm now officially a tiara wearing blogger!

Ahhh, you've noticed that it's now warm enough that we're not wearing jackets and short sleeves are fine. So weird. Oh, and masks are allowed for trick or treating but not at school, so Mister Man now has his mask on.

Sad Moment:
The families that were supposed to join us for trick or treating and dinner after both had to cancel. One had to fly to Cincinnati because her grandmother is dying and she needed to get there to say goodbye before it was too late. The other wasn't as dire, but both children have nasty colds, so she was out, too. This is the first year that another friend of mine that we have trick or treated with every year since we moved here has been in Kansas City. I really missed having her with me. Very weird walking the neighborhood by myself.

Surprising Moments:
Little Miss, the girl who last year cried her head off when I told her only four more houses and refused to stop trick or treating, decided about a third of the way through our neighborhood that she was done trick or treating. Fortunately since my neighborhood makes lots of circles, we were within sight of my house and I sent her home and watched until my husband took her inside (it was still daylight then).

Mister Man chose the option of going through the haunted house that one of our neighbors set up. He doesn't like being scared. And he did ok.

Neat Moment:

I went running yesterday (yeah... I brought all my stuff to Florida and went exactly zero times), so Mister Man was in the Kids Area while I was running. When I picked him up, one of the women who works there had painted his face. This isn't your usual thick blob where you squint and are told it's a sun and then figure out that yeah, I guess it's a sun. She's good. And apparently she did this out of the goodness of her heart, which was pretty neat. He ended up with a great spider on one cheek and a spiderweb on the other. He was so proud!


Unusual Moment:
Neither wee one wore a coat the whole time we were out. Little Miss had a short sleeved dress on. And I didn't need a jacket. It was warm out. It was 73 degrees when we started out. It was only 62 and 65 for a high in Orlando the last two days we were there. Those poor kids in the comfy Elmo costumes. They must have been roasting!

Phew Moments:
Little Miss decided that she'd be the golden princess for trick or treating. While the witch was fine for school, it required a turtleneck underneath it, and it was too warm for a turtleneck. Oh, and it was sort of too short for her this year. Oh, and then she decided that she was a flying princess. Who flies using pixie dust. And shoots webs from her hands. Yep, the golden flying princess slash spider. Creative little cuss, isn't she?

As of this morning, we have both our pumpkins. Nothing was smashed this year, and no shennanigans, even with a Friday night Halloween and tons of parties and bands of kids wandering around until after I'd gone to bed.

High Point:
The wee ones had no meltdowns the whole time we trick or treated. In fact, we covered the entire neighborhood. All 120 houses. And they held hands and crossed streets together and were overall very sweet. In fact, they even handed each other candy rather than just shoving their shares into their buckets and running along. Oh, and neither of them asked to eat any candy the whole time we were out.

Low Point:
Mister Man decided he had to go potty when we were very far from our house. I told him that we could either ask a neighbor (we don't know anyone on the part of the neighborhood, of course) to use their potty or find a dark house and head behind. He chose to ask a neighbor.

Creepy Moment:
The neighbor he asked gladly let him use the potty. And that neighbor appears to be a divorced dad who doesn't know how to keep house. I was embarrassed to be in the house. Especially when Mister Man didn't lift the seat and instead sat down. I didn't know he had to go that kind of potty. Whoops!

Entertaining Moments:
At one neighbor's house, the dad answering the door told Little Miss that she was really pretty. She didn't respond. Mister Man chirped in happily Thanks! Needless to say, we all cracked up. Mister Man totally didn't get it.

Whenever someone would tell Mister Man that he looked strong or asked him if he was Spiderman, he was very honest. Inside my costume, I'm just a regular boy or Those aren't my muscles; it's just part of the costume.

Little Miss eventually grew tired of her costume. Somewhere along the way, she took off her earrings and put them in her pumpkin bucket. She eventually explained that her tiara hurt, so off her head it went and onto mine. Then I noticed she was carrying her necklace in her hands, so I put it around my neck. What next? Why her dress of course! She complained near the end that her dress was hurting her. Since it was still over 60 degrees at 7:45, I had nothing on her under the dress save her Elmo underwear. I refused to let her take that off. Besides, it was way too small for me.

Oh, and one of our neighbors was having a party for her daughter and her daughter's friends. They're in the round part of the cul de sac, and we have an island in the middle of the cul de sac. Navigating this with cars parked along the edge of the street by teen drivers is probably not the easiest. I heard a giant crunch as we were walking back to our house at the end of trick or treating. One of the party guests had backed his dad's car into the brick mailbox. Whoops!

Record Breaking Moment:
The 342nd person who trick or treated at our house. And the 343rd. And the 344th. All the way up to the 372nd. Seriously. We had 372 trick or treaters tonight. And yes, the streets were packed with cars from people who drove in from other neighborhoods. I tried to take some pictures, but my camera didn't like taking pictures of the cars in the dark.

Aha Moment:
As we went on from house to house, some of the families offered the wee ones a choice of candy versus handing them a piece. Inevitably, they chose a Baby Ruth or Almond Joy or Peanut M&Ms or Mike & Ike or some other candy that wasn't a Twix or Snickers or Kit Kat. Next year, I'm teaching them how to choose candy!

Disappointing Moments:
I kept having to remind them to say thank you. They got the trick or treat pretty well, and they'd say it when I reminded them, but I had to remind them about 98% of the time. I was hoping that they'd be able to eventually remember on their own. Even more disappointing, I got many, many comments about how polite and well-mannered they were. If that was well-mannered, what were the rest of the kids doing?

I also was wearing Little Miss's ring. It was way too big for her, but she wanted to wear it when we first left the house. After she dropped it the nineteenth time, I put it on my finger. Not surprisingly, it was a bit small. And it fell off when I was transferring candy from their small buckets into my backpack. I heard a clank but didn't realize what it was until about twenty feet later when I realized it wasn't on my finger anymore. We went back, but I couldn't find it.

Yay Moment:
After we got back from trick or treating, I took a flashlight and went back to look for the ring. Unlike the (pretend) walkie-talkie we lost last year, I found the ring!