It's about time for some Halloween pictures, wouldn'tcha say?

This year, I really wanted Eleanor to be something for Halloween that she could get excited about. I thought about fashioning some sort of Wall-E or Eve costume since she loved going to her first movie this year, but the logistics of that just ruined it for me. Too much work. I tried asking her what she wanted to be, but she didn't remember last year well enough to know what I was asking. She'd give me great, useless answers like, "hair costume." Although I maybe could have complied with that request, it would have been a bit weird.

Inspiration finally came during lunch one day. Like many other days, she was pausing during eating to growl at me, and like many other days, I was pretending to be scared while groaning inwardly about how many times a day I am growled at and still need to pretend it's actually fun (some days, I don't even pretend. I just tell her to stop growling and eat-- boring mommy that I am). The growl was followed by the question she had been asking me all too often (probably because it made me smile the first time she asked it and I was able to answer her question instead of having to give my fake petrified reaction) of "Dinosaurs do dat?" It dawned on me that the girl who loves growling so much and talking about dinosaurs just might enjoy being one for Halloween.

So, we looked at some costumes online, mostly to see what I might find in stores. We saw that Old Navy had this cute dragon costume, and it was an acceptable alternative for her. Tracking down the costume turned out to be a bit challenging, but with the help of Uncle Mike in Albany, we managed to get one in her size. Note to self: figure out costumes earlier in the month next time.

If you ask me, it was worth it. She was so excited to get her dragon costume, and she wore it almost every day until Halloween (so we got a good half a month of use out of it).

On Halloween, we rushed through dinner to visit a few of our neighbors before going to the trunk-or-treat. That took a bit longer than expected, and we were later than we had hoped to be in leaving for trunk-or-treat. I thought it started it 6, and we got there just before 6:30. Well, it turns out that I was wrong. It had started at 5:30 and went until 6:30, so it was ending just as we got there. We had even invited Michael and Lucero to come along and share in our disappointment. (SO sorry, guys.) So, we caught a few cars that hadn't left yet, and I desperately handed out as many blow pops as I could so we wouldn't get stuck with them. Luckily, the kids weren't as disappointed as I was; they didn't know the difference. And, at least it wasn't our only plan for the evening.

We moved on to Grandma Matthews' house, or "Tudio Grandma," as Eleanor calls her-- because she has a studio, pronounced without the S in Eleanor speak. Once there, we took the kids to a few well-known neighbors, and then got them settled in for a movie in the playroom while we got to enjoy apple cider and tacos- yum!

They watched a Winnie the Pooh Halloween movie that Eleanor hadn't seen before. You could hardly get her to look away from the screen the entire time.

But I did manage one picture of her face.

I was going to be really creative and put Phaedra in a dress so I could get a picture of them together, the dragon and the "damsel in this dress." But, I ran out of time, and it wasn't very practical for the trunk-or-treat, so I just put her in these cute Halloween jammies and called it good. Maybe next year. . .