Halloween in a New Neighborhood

D knew by mid-September that he wanted to be a mummy for Halloween. I had visions of me wrapping him up in toilet paper and then going trick-or-treating in the rain. Not a pretty scenario. Luckily we found the perfect mummy costume at a store right down the street from our new house. Scary mask included, but not shown here. While at the store, B was immediately drawn to the fireman costume. I warned him that if he wanted to be a fireman, he HAD to wear the hat. HAD TO. He has a history for wanting to wear a certain costume only to cry about not wanting to wear the hat once Halloween finally arrives (for example, the elephant head/hood on his Dumbo costume, the engineers cap on his train engineer costume, and his surgical cap with last year's doctor outfit). And what do you know?? He actually LOVED his hat this year. Except that he kept insisiting on wearing it backwards. I had to show him pictures of fireman out of various children's books in order to convince him that the brim is indeed worn on the back.

On trick-or-treat night we were dressed and raring to go by 5:15, even though nothing 'officially' started until at *least* 5:30. After 11 years at our old house, we were curious to see what Halloween was like in our new neighborhood. We were more than pleasantly surprised at the turnout. Grandma came to hand out candy for us so that we could all go out together (thanks, mom!!), and what a bucket of loot our boys ended up with! There are approximately 10 roads of side-by-side houses in our development. By the time we finished trick-or-treating up two roads, the boys' pumpkin-buckets were filled to the brim. We had to return home to empty the load and went back out for round two. It was SO MUCH FUN to see so many costumed people clustered together under the dim street lights of our cute little neighborhood. People were sitting outside on their doorsteps with big bowls of candy to hand out. People were peaking out windows waiting for the next group of scary goblins to ring their doorbells. And best of all, Hubby and I got to enjoy watching our own little boysies having the time of their lives.

At our old house, D got tired after five houses. That's because of the distance we had to walk between each house. It was an effort, to say the least. Here, we conquered five houses in five minutes. Even though last year at this time we'd never have foreseen where we'd be today, we are finding new joys with each passing day. What a difference a year makes.