A Snowy, Spooky Halloween

This Halloween was very interesting for several reasons.
1) It was the first Halloween in our new house.
2) We had a freak snow storm the day before so we were trick or treating with snow on the ground.
3) Because of the storm, power was out all around our neighborhood. There had been rumors trick or treating would be cancelled or postponed because of that (as it was in other near by communities). Due to dark streets and folks not knowing weather to sit around for trick or treaters, it was difficult to scare up enough houses to fill our pumpkin bucket. We gave it a shot anyway.

Since I normally don't get home until about 45 minutes before Dylan heads to bed, I skipped taking a lunch break and left work early so we could get our Halloween on. Dylan was ready (and adorable!) in costume so we headed out around 6 when it was already getting pretty dark.

This was how we rolled.

We had to cover a decent amount of ground to find folks with their lights on but we persisted and did just that. In the process, we got to meet and introduce ourselves to some of our new neighbors.

Talking About What We're Going to Say When the Door Opens

What Dylan really loved about Halloween last year was seeing all the other kids around in costume and passing out candy. Unfortunately, due to the circumstances, not many other kids were out and about. We only saw 5 other trick or treaters all night! One of the kids that was dressed as a monkey was mostly on the same route we were so Dylan enjoyed passing back and forth up sidewalks with what he called "my friend."

Also, Dylan was great at taking candy from people. He liked that part! We never did quite get down the trick or treat part. Between every house we remind him what we say when we get to the door. Then, we we got to the door, we would prompt him with "What do you say?" and he would always reply with "Please!" Well, at least he's got his manners! At our prompting, he would say "trick or treat," "Thank You," "Happy Halloween" and give the person a good lion's roar.

After hitting the streets for almost an hour, Dylan was done. When walking back up to the house, we saw our monkey friend on the street and had her come up to get some candy from us. That was our only trick or treater.

While Dylan's bucket was far from full, it was plenty of candy for a 2 year old.....even enough to share with ol' Mom.

The Loot

Another great thing that came out of the night was not only meeting neighbors but meeting neighbors with teenage daughters. We had 3 girls saying they would love to babysit and one has already followed up with a phone call. Yay! Since moving, we've not had lots of time to go out but my in-laws have been our only sitting option. The girl that loved watching Dylan in our old neighborhood is not quite old enough to drive so she won't be able to sit for us again until at least spring. It's exciting to have some new babysitting prospects. Hopefully one (or more!) will work out.

What's posted in pictures above is all we managed to get on Halloween night. Definitely not enough of our cute lion. So it was lucky when a few days later, Dylan told me he wanted to put on his lion costume again. Great! I put it on him and he was very cooperative running to and from me giving me some good roars and allowing me to get some better photo ops.

Big Roar!

This was definitely an odd Halloween. All that mattered was that Dylan enjoyed it and he did. It being such unusual circumstances will make it one that's easy to remember in future years. It's odd to think that next year we'll have 2 trick or treaters to take around the neighborhood!