Halloween

Here we go! The big night! After several practice runs we are ready to go... sorta. Haley is so worked up about Halloween that she will not sit still long enough to put her costume on. It gets to the point that Dad threatens to cancel Halloween, and begins to take the costumes upstairs to put them away. Its amazing how quickly a toddler will stop misbehaving when a statement of that magnitude is made.

Finally adorned in her Snow White costume, Haley approaches the door of the first house.
"Trick Or Treat!"
"Uh... Sweetie, you have to knock on the door first..."
"Trick Or Treat," she says again to the closed door, treat bag outstretched.
Nicole goes and knocks on the door. The door opens to the delighted squeal of the occupant. "Ohhhh... you're so cute! Are you Snow White?"
"Go ahead, Haley," I whisper, "Say 'trick or treat'!"
The woman at the door is met with a blank stare.
"Trick or treat," I hiss, "trick or treat," like a stage manager giving an actress her lines.
Nothing but the blank stare. The woman smiles and gives Haley a candy bar.
"What do we say, Haley," asks Nicole.
Blank stare.
"Thank you," I coach, "We say 'thank you'!"
Blank stare.
We thank the woman for her generosity and wish her a Happy Halloween. No sooner than we get to the bottom step of her house and hear the door close behind us, Haley finds her voice.
"Look dad I gotta candee bar I went toda house and the lady gave me a candee bar are we gonna go to Evie's house today I wanna goto Evie's house mommy Bree was dressed as a butterfly Haley is Snow White...."
And on like this until we got to the next house, where Haley gave a repeat performance of bravado in the face of a closed door, but mute terror when that door was opened.

She eventually did better. We were helped by the fact that we joined up with another of the neighborhood families, and Haley got to go to the door with her friend Evie (the bunny above). Evie was better at the trick or treating, but not by much. When the door opened she would shout "Happy Halloween!" before wandering off.

After a quick tour of the neighborhood, we headed for home, where Haley helped us pass out candy to the older kids. For every candy she passed out, she would take one from our own bowl and put it in her trick-or-treat bag. She did get to choose one candy to eat when we got home, and decided on a lime green lollypop, which soon covered her mouth, her shirt, her hands, and a few pieces of furniture. Ah well. An entertaining night for us all.