A Witch and her Dragon

Grace and Shreya (a neighbor friend) 

at the ward Trunk or Treat.

It's been a long time since Grace has been willing to consider dressing up as anything other than a princess/queen for Halloween.  Every year, I try to make the case for how awesome dressing up as banana or a giraffe would be, always to no avail.

After a fairly disappointing trick or treating showing last year due to cold weather and a lot of long dress induced tripping, Spencer was convinced that the best costume for Grace would be that of a water buffalo.  Grace wasn't having that either.  Plus, surprisingly, that costume is not super easy to come by. :)

This year, hope sprang eternal and I once again tried to break Grace out of her Disney Princess induced bubble.  After every Princess costume we looked at either didn't fit or wasn't in great shape, I started tentatively pushing the idea of the witch costume.

At first she seemed okay with it, but the closer we got to the cash register, the worse she felt about it.  We were headed to my sister's house for dinner right after, so I convinced her that we'd get it for now so she could show Ellie and the cousins and see what they thought.  Then, if she still really hated it, we could return it.   That went horribly (tears, dramatic exlamations, etc.), so my hopes weren't too high as we headed home that night.

Miraculously (I still can't explain it), I woke up the next morning to a witch costume clad Grace, happily doing tricks with her witch's hat.   And she was happy about it from then on.  It was a Halloween miracle. She did end up accessorizing her witch hat with a purple crown, but hey, progress was made.   Yippee!

When I still felt that a princess costume was inevitable, I thought Luke would have made an awesome jester in Grace's royal court:

Sadly, he hated the court jester costume.  Something about it being way too top heavy, I don't know... :)  I thought it was pretty adorable.  A friend ended up loaning us the below pictured, fabulous dragon costume so it all worked out in the end.  

Sneaking all the food he could at the Trunk or Treat.

On the way to the Trunk of Treat.

Grace's school had a little Fall Festival on Halloween day.  They sent home a letter requesting that the kids dress up as either what they want to be when they grow up, or something representing their favorite letter.  Grace chose the letter P and dressed up as a purple plum.  All I'm saying is that there are a shocking amount of kids who want to be zombies and super heroes when they grow up.  Apparently other parents didn't take the "no Halloween costume" edict as seriously as I did.  :)

We carved pumpkins with some friends. I helped Grace with hers and never got around to carving mine.  It remains faceless to this day.  Spencer did a pretty good job on his, I thought.

The kids on Halloween night.  It went much better than last year,
despite an ominous weather forecast.  We braved the rain and had
a fabulous time going out with the Warnicks.  Luke is a trick or
treating natural.  He is my child after all.  :)  Strangely, he didn't
trust me to hold his bag of candy.  Or help him put the candy in
his bag.  Rats!  He's already on to me.

Cute group of cousins!