The Trick or Treating Machine

Last year the girls wanted one of those giant blow up Halloween cats for the yard.  We picked one up on sale after Halloween along with a few other props to make our yard spooky and festive looking.  A couple of weeks ago we set up "le chat noir" and hung ghost bags full of leaves around the yard.  We even made a little graveyard in the sand box with tombstones and skeleton bones.  It was the perfect little backdrop to take some Halloween pictures until... the wind and snow came.

We came home from school one day and the blow up cat was nothing but a deflated pool of nylon laying on the deck, the cute string of leaf bag ghosts were ripped off and all tangled in the fence boards, the tombstones were knocked over and blown into the corner of the yard and the skeleton bones were frozen into the sand and buried under a skiff of ice and snow.  

Long story short...  we took costume pictures at school.  You never know what your going to get for Halloween when you live in the north.  This year we had a cold wind biting at us while we treated.  

Callie says she wants to be a police officer when she grows up because she likes the outfits they wear and she likes the trucks they drive.  So when she saw the police costume her mind was made up. And Lexi,well, she went back and forth for a month between a beautiful butterfly and shimmering mermaid. In the end, little sister couldn't resist the the sparkling sequins of a mermaid tail but only to curse it out when she found out she couldn't run and keep up with the big kids because she kept tripping on her fins.

Grandma Witch trailed behind with Lexi trying to tuck her fins into her boots so that she wouldn't trip and have a repeat from last year.  But it happened anyway. Sister tripped and fell and cried big crocodile tears because the big kids were going ahead without her.  So it turned out that Callie continued on Trick or Treating with her friends that we had met up with along the way and Mommy Witch and Grandma Witch carried a sobbing, sparkly little mermaid back to grandma's house to cut the fins of that mermaid tail so that sister could continue at the proper trick or treating pace.

After we finished hacking off the bottom of Lexi's costume and our cheeks were warmed up and the tears were all gone, me and my little fin-less mermaid were ready to hit the streets, just the two of us. As it turns out, little sister is a trick or treating machine!  She had so much fun talking to everyone, petting their dogs, looking at their decorations, asking them questions...all at her own pace.  And to top it off, she refused to go home until her bag was completely full!  She kept saying, "just one more house, mom!"  Finally, when she could no longer lift her bag, we headed back to grandma's house.

Callie had made it back to grandma's house with her bag full of treats and she was mighty impressed by the haul of goodies that little sister had collected.  We sat by the fire and warmed our fingers and toes.  The girls sorted, counted and then ate their treats.  I would say it was another successful year of trick or treating. And, I'll say that I'm really glad when Halloween lands on a Friday!