Tuesday, November 17, 2015

A Halloween Mommy Daughter Date

Halloween was a little bit different this year. Kind of more a mommy/daughter date than anything.

Julianne's main Halloween to-do had already come and gone so she headed off to a more casual sort of party for the evening with some friends.

Brandon swore he was bringing a bunch of gymnastics buddies home to celebrate Halloween in our very festive and carnival-like neighborhood...but at the last minute they ended up staying at another kid's house and trick-or-treated there. (Costume-less because Brandon's Hercules get-up that he insisted I purchase for him was still here at the house. Guess what he's going to be dressing up as next year??)

And then Heather scored herself some tickets to the Garth Brooks concert (lucky duck!) and apologetically pulled out of our annual Halloween traditions.

So, just Lilian and me. Luna Lovegood and a bank robber. And though Lilian was good natured about it overall, there were a couple of times she would comment, "I miss Noah. He'd run to the door with me. Now I have to do it by myself." Cause you know...it wasn't like her 42-year old mom was going to do much more than stand on the side walk in front of each house and cheer her on. And hold her increasingly heavy bucket of candy as the evening wore on. After two hours of trick-or-treating the orange jack-o-lantern bucket was completely full to overflowing and I can totally understand why she didn't want to carry it herself. I didn't want to carry it! That thing was heavy! Plus I was also trying to keep track of her scarf and my phone....all while continuously adjusting my black hat that didn't seem to want to stay put on the back of my head despite the bobby pins. And while peering through a black bank robber mask that was getting more and more irritating the longer I had it on.

But, candy galore. And hot cocoa at the bishop's house. And an Alice in Wonderland theme at the Elliott's. And the traditional Shadows of Fear haunted house down the street. (Which we didn't go through but did get close enough to for Lilian to hang out with a fire juggling clown. And he was creepy!) I think my favorite part of the evening though, was when we walked past a group of boys Lilian's age. She said hello to them all and then as we walked away one of the boys said to another..."Did you see Lilian? She looked SO pretty!!!" Lilian got a big grin on her face, but continued to walk on all coyly like she hadn't overheard. I couldn't help but laugh.














































We checked in with Dad who had been manning the door at our house and updated him on the evening's festivities when we got home. Then we sorted and counted candy and settled in to watch "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (Lilian), and peruse Facebook and Instagram to see everyone's Halloween costume pictures (me). It was a good night...but we will be happy to hopefully have Brandon,  Noah and the gang all back with us again next year.

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