Halloween 2012

Boy, did we have a lot of activities for Halloween this (past) year.  We pretty much dragged it out from the end of September (the Mickey Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World) all the way to Halloween night at the end of October.  Might have been a bit much, haha.  But compared to last year (when she fell asleep on our way to go trick or treating), Sophia was really into Halloween this time around so I thought a little extra celebrating was just fine.  And fun!  Halloween has never rated very high on my list of favorite holidays but celebrating it with my little girl sure has made me like it even more.  And this year she was SO excited. 
First up, we went to my friend Tracey's church for a Trunk or Treat.  It was so cute, and the first of something like that I had been to.  We didn't collect too much candy, Sophia was a little shy at first but had fun following around Annabelle/Rapunzel.  Then we had some snacks and the girls had a blast dancing around and playing some games.  I was so happy Tracey invited us, we really had a fun time and it was nice to hang out with my friend and her daughter (her son was there too, but we hardly saw him at all, he was off with his friends having fun!). 

 The girls on the dance floor.

 What good is a dress if you can swirl it around?!

 Annabelle was SO sweet with Sophia...and Soph loved her!

Playing a game with Ms.Tracey's help.  :-)

Next up was an office trick or treat at my Dad's office.  We went last year too (apparently they do it every year) and it was a lot of fun so as soon as my Dad let me know when it was (by text the morning of) we planned on going.  Another great excuse to wear her cute costume!  Soph wasn't nearly as shy this year (and knows a lot of my Dad's co-workers a lot better this year) and had fun going office to office getting candy in her bag.  And then of course we had to hang out in my Dad's office to eat some of it.  :-)

 Shoving the candy in before I can take it, haha. 

 Yum!!

 LOVE this picture of my Dad and Sophia.  :-)

 And then clearly there had to be some spinning in Grampa's desk chair!

Weeeeee!

After we picked out our pumpkins we obviously had to carve them.  Sophia really didn't want much to do with getting her hands all dirty, so she helped a little...and mostly let Daddy take care of all the work.  :-) We hallowed out three pumpkins but only carved two of them....I had seen something on Pinterest where you could drill holes into a hallow pumpkin and put lollipops in the holes and leave that out for when you weren't home to pass out candy.  I thought that would be perfect for when we were taking Sophia trick or treating and then we could just pass out candy normally after that.  It was a good idea in theory but super messy when Michael was using the drill to make the holes! 

Finally it was actually Halloween!  Sophia got to dress up for school that day and walk in a cute little parade in the gym in front of all the other classes.  I feel super lucky that I am there too for things like that.  I don't have to miss out on stuff that goes on at school with her because a lot of times both of the two year classes (mine and hers) do things together and I am always able to participate in what she is doing if I want to.  After school we napped until Daddy got home and then we got all ready to trick or treat around the neighborhood.  I was SO happy that we were actually in a neighborhood this year.  Last year we had to drive somewhere to trick or treat, and we never really made it because she fell asleep in the car.  And there had been years in the past in our condo that teenagers who weren't even dressed up came to the door for candy....we pretty much didn't even open the door on Halloween night there cause you never knew.  This year was a different ball game.  We got her wagon all set up with blankets and stuff and took some pictures and headed out on our way.  It was AWESOME!  Sophia LOVED going up to the doors and saying 'trick or treat' and then opening up her bag for candy.  We were out for almost an hour (our neighborhood is huge so we could've been out longer, but felt that was plenty long enough and her bag was more than full of candy) and she was great the whole time.  She even remembered to say thank you most of the time and a lot of the people handing out the candy said how polite and cute she was.  :-)  Even the scarier houses didn't really scare her that much and she liked calling them the 'haunted' houses, haha. 

 

 

Halloween was a success and I am actually looking forward to next year. I will probably stay in with the new baby and pass out candy while Daddy takes Sophia out...but I think we will still have a lot of fun activities related to Halloween in the future. :-) Halloween 2012 was so much fun!  Looking forward to Halloween 2013! :-)