All About Halloween 2012

Raise your hand if you are one of those who loves to read about a holiday recap a week after it has occurred? Yes? No? Okay. I get it. Unfortunately, I have to maneuver scheduled posts around when these sort of things happen, and as much as I'd love to say that I come home and upload the pictures and type up the post real quick exactly when it happens.... that would just be lies.

I did however do so the next night? That counts for something, no?

Where do I begin? I am trying to sort through all the excitement that is my brain at this point in time. Why? Because it was seriously one of the best days/nights ever. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you some extravagant story... it's just literally as simple as this.... My daughter's smile and excitement was overwhelming. My heart exploded with so much joy, that I was sure it couldn't handle anymore.

And this is no exaggeration.

But let me back up here. Since this is our little journal to look to one day, I'd like Elliana to be able to read back on this day with every detail at hand. So the beginning. Lets start.

For us, our "halloween" didn't really start until the afternoon, after our usual nap. Mama worked the night before, so we took a nice long nap and I think we both definitely needed that. Once we woke up, we had our lunch and got into our outfits. Outfit number one that is.

The kitty cat suit.

This suit was the second outfit that I had purchased for Elliana. Both outfits were cat outfits, however this one had the tail and the ears and such so I thought that this would be more suiting. I was wrong. Elliana hated it from the moment she saw it, and cringed when I had put it on her.

We had it on long enough to take pictures and that... well... that satisfied mama.

On goes the second outfit. The original outfit that I had purchased for E back in August. The outfit that was $50.00 and only cost me $10.00 with shipping<---- Deal obsessed mama.

She loved this outfit. Mainly? Because it really didn't feel or look like a costume. In fact, they were regular clothes with cat stuff all over them. Simple enough right?

So, an outfit, and a very poor job on the whisker/nose art work from mama later, and we were set. Looking good, and very catliscious {did I just say that? I think I did.}.

I decided next that it would only be standard halloween tradition that we carve a pumpkin. Sure, we have 4 sitting on the front porch but considering the fact that 3 of the 4 are written on with our initials, I decided that the little tiny fourth one would be the one to be carved.

Of course that pumpkin happened to be baby brother's pumpkin. Second child syndrome beginning.

I wasn't all too sure how Elliana would handle the whole pumpkin experience. You know, she's a very sassy prisssy my-hands-can't-get-dirty kind of girl. And well? The result? I was right.

However, she did thoroughly enjoy helping mama get the yucky stuff out with a spoon. While mama used her hands. Now, who's the child here after all?

In no time, I realized that time was quickly passing and I needed to get myself together. My little "kitty" outfit {aka all black} and whiskers and nose painted on. Elliana loved this part the most. All night she would go on to call mama "caaaat" and giggle her little head off. In fact this continued on to the next day, even after, I had already taken the makeup {dry erase marker} off.

Before I was even ready, there were rings on the doorbell and the dog started going crazy. In the cage Carson went and Elli ran straight to the front door where the candy sat nicely on the ground waiting to be passed out by the little toddler herself.

Oh man, had I known...Had I known.... I could have never dreamed of excitement such as this. After the first round of showing Elliana how to put candy in the kid's baskets... she was a pro. She would wave off to the kids and say "Bye friends!" with the biggest smile on her face. Then she would snatch up two handfuls of candy in her hands, put her nose to the glass door and search for more trick-or-treaters to come her way.

And when they did? Eyes lit up, smile across face, and she would squeal to me "Mama, they comin!"

"Yes baby, here they come."

We passed out quite a bit of candy before the papa bear rolled into the drive way. Little did Elliana know what was to come.

I don't think we even gave Andrew a chance to breathe when he walked in the door. It was literally like this... hi papa, love you papa, kiss here, kiss there, okay lets go!

In fact, he didn't even get to change out of his work clothes. We did let him put on a warm jacket though. How kind of us :)

And just when I thought that this night couldn't possibly get much better than when I saw Elliana pass out candy... I was proven wrong, yet again.

The excitement was too much for me to handle. Too much for Andrew to handle as well. Even he kept saying how unbelievably happy it made him to see such a big smile on our daughter's face. So much happiness in those little moments. The way we made her night that much more exciting, fun, and memorable.

Because of the cold weather, most of Elliana's outfit was covered up by her white fur coat. But believe me friends, she made up for it with her squeaky shoes that everyone gushed about. I'm pretty sure every house we went to, we got some sort of remark on how stinkin' adorable she was and they died over her shoes.

I couldn't help but agree.

And Elliana soaked in every minute of it. Every time we would pull up to the house... "Mama ets go!....Mama hand, Papa hand."

She would stomp right up there, show off her baby blue eyes, and dig her hand in the bucket. I had to always be there to make sure she wouldn't grab by the handfuls and encouraged her to "just take one baby." That and to practice her "Trick or treat" and "please and thank you."

Oh gosh, I just can't even stop gushing every time I think/talk about it.

We ended the night by stopping by the house so hubby could change and then we drove down the street to our friend's house where they were having people over. Enjoyed some good food and some good company. Elliana would not let go of her basket full of candy. She didn't want to eat it. She just loved carrying it around.

Her and her little friend did.

Overall? I say A+ to halloween 2012.

***Please also take a moment to head over here and send some prayers to Summer as she undergoes more treatment this week. She is one strong and amazing mama!***