We’ve been in our new house for exactly one week and we’ve already celebrated our first holiday. How is that for exciting?! The girls and I made a big deal of taking photos on the front porch last Friday morning, since it would be our last round of marking holidays and events on those rock steps. We’ve joked that we’re not sure where our place is at the new house just yet, but we tried a few spots for Halloween just to see how it felt. I’m guessing as we add our own personal touches to the porches and start unpacking our things, we’ll start to naturally gravitate to a single spot.
In case you missed it, Sophie dressed up like a unicorn this year and Ella went the simple route with this Taylor Swift idea. All I can say is that’s it’s a good idea we started on those costumes early, because we would have been trick or treating in our school clothes otherwise! You never know what kind of weather you’ll get for Halloween in Alabama and I should have remembered that after eleven Halloweens of managing costumes. We opted for too many sweatshirts this year and that meant we were in various stages of undress before we even got started. Sophie spent most of the day with her costume tied around her waist and I carried Ella’s frame far more than she did. After last year’s jellyfish umbrella, you would have thought I learned my lesson about costumes that require a child to carry something. The short version is: don’t do it.
We decided to celebrate Halloween on Sunday this year since weeknights are hard for us. The girls didn’t have any activities, but there was no way to guarantee how late I would get home, so we opted for easy instead of taking any chances. There were several local options over the weekend and Sunday worked best since we were finally all settled in the new house. Hudson came by to take a few quick pictures and gave us all a big scare with his sharp teeth. He was a fierce little dinosaur and growled at anyone who would listen! He also posed with Ella’s album cover a time or two — maybe he was TSwift in costume…
In addition to a local fall festival, we headed out to the CUTEST little town for a Trunk or Treat sponsored by a local church. It was around a town square, with tons of trunks filled with candy, plus some super cute carnival games. I might declare this our new go-to option for Halloween — it was just that cute.
There was an Alice in Wonderland themed stop where the Mad Hatter manned a game of flamingo croquet. All the kids enjoyed a hole in one with his help and stocked up on candy pretty quick! Sophie and Hudson both loved this western themed trunk, too. It had bales of hay with saddles where they could try their hand at lassoing a steer. Sophie managed to catch him a couple of times and was pretty proud of herself.
This Disney themed stop was a cardboard castle filled with every character you could imagine. The kids got to walk up a red carpet covered stairway and head inside the castle for lots of sweet treats! Hudson was particularly fond of Goofy and now his mom needs to seriously consider a Disney trip in our future.
This boat race booth was probably my favorite of the night. They had gutters filled with water and plastic boats and the kids used spray bottles to send their boats racing towards the finish line. They could choose a candy of their choice once they conquered the course.
It didn’t take them long to realize that with mom standing at the other end snapping photos, they could easily spray her with water and make a mess. I tried to get away, but not before I was soaked and these two were laughing uncontrollably!
Despite our previous undress, I managed to coax them back into their costumes for a few photos before we left. Sophie couldn’t be bothered to put her popcorn down for a photo op, but I can’t say that I blame her. That popcorn was delicious! Ella was a little bummed at the beginning because she didn’t like carrying her “costume” around and she kept having to explain it to the older people manning some of the booths. Finally, as we rounded the last corner, the sweetest couple saw her and flipped out. The husband carried on about how it was the coolest costume he’d seen all night. It totally made her day and made our simple costume completely worth it.
We debated heading to another fall festival on Monday night, but the girls were kind of over their costumes at that point. My mom and I had made various pots of soup over the weekend and we had tons of leftovers, so we decided to light the campfire and enjoy dinner outside while we waited for our favorite trick-or-treater. One of my very favorite things to do in the fall is eat dinner at my parents’ around the fire, so now that it’s my own backyard, it’s even sweeter. The only problem was, I got stuck in traffic and they got to enjoy sitting outside without me. Not cool, Halloween.
