Halloween 2012

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Halloween, but I am not one of those people who chooses my costume months in advance, keeps it a secret, and spends hour toiling over it, waiting for the moment of big reveal.  I don't think I've dressed up for Halloween since Junior High School.  However, Halloween with kids is a whole different ball game, so to speak. And I think it's becoming one of my favorites.  We took Cyrus trick-or-treating last year, at just over 2 years old, and while he had a good time, he only made it about 10 house before pooping out, and I don't think he fully grasped what was happening.  This year, on the other hand, the kid had a blast!

Full disclosure  I am not a homemade Halloween costume kind of girl.  I kind of wish I was, because I love the idea of it, I just know that I have too many other things on my plate to make room for that.  Cyrus initially wanted to be a pirate for Halloween, but after a trip to the Fresno Bulldogs team store where he spotted a full kids football uniform, he quickly switched costume allegiance.  As a side note, the kid wore his football costume every day for a week straight!

Jason wanted to dress Harriette up as Cy's football, but the poor girl already gets mistaken for a boy at every turn, so I thought maybe something a little more girly was in store (not that she knows the difference, but still).  We had a few hand-me-down costumes to choose from, and finally settled on this cute little pink butterfly costume.  Actually, Cyrus chose it for her.  He has had a strange affinity for it every since we got it, and has tried to squeeze into several times.  Fortunately, he didn't feel too possessive over it, and instead wanted to see his little sister wear it.

We set off for trick-or-treating at around 6pm, just as it was starting to get dark.  We were the first trick-or-treaters at several homes before the crowds increased.  Before the first house, we thought Cy should have a little re-fresher on the process.  The conversation went like this:

Jason: Ok Cy, when you know on the door, and the person answers, what do you say?
Cyrus: How do you do?
Jason: Uh, yes, that would be nice, but this is Halloween so you say "Trick or Treat".  Here, let's practice.  Knock on this garbage can.
(Cyrus knocks on the garbage can, and Jason pretends to open a door, at which point Cy turns away from Jason and looks around obliviously)
Jason: Ok Cy, I'm opening the door, what do you say?
Cyrus: What door?  There's no door here dad!

So, apparently we need to work on the pretend play a bit...

Fortunately, once he got started he had no problem saying "Trick-or-Treat", "Happy Halloween" and of course "Thank you".

Since Hattie isn't walking yet, she was just along for the ride and didn't have her own bucket.  However, about half of the houses we went to insisted on giving Cyrus a second handful of candy for his sister.  He owes her big time!

We were actually out for over an hour, and check out the haul this kid made!

 My favorite part of the evening was when Cy got a dum dum at the one of the houses and his face lit up like Christmas morning.  As we left the house, he grabbed the sucker, turned to me, and said "Look mom, this is the thing that I love the most!"  People could save a lot of money on Cyrus as a trick-or-treater!

And, since I never got around to posting pictures from last year, here is a cute one of Cookie Monster with his chocolate chip cookie.