Lily might be disappointed...

After months of trick-or-treat preparation by practicing around the house (and receiving things like sticky notes and empty DVD boxes for her pumpkin), Halloween is coming to an end.  How are we going to explain that the exciting culmination of all of her talking about Halloween has wrapped up?  At least she enjoyed every minute of it!

We started the morning off with orange pancakes with green stems.  I even stumbled across some yellow glitter cake gel and made a few of them jack-o-lanterns!  Paired it up with some bright orange scrambled eggs and some...normal, boring potatoes.

Then we made a run to the store because we were still undecided and unprepared for any one costume for the evening.  We did a lot of deliberating as we walked down the aisles of Walmart and tossed around thoughts of princesses, cowgirls, cows, dinosaurs, rockets, chefs, and just about anything else that Lily laid eyes on.  We settled on cowgirls because we had most of the stuff at home already and Lily was the one that suggested they match.

For lunch, it was a jack-o-lantern pizza.  What can I say?  I like to play with my food.  Then we almost literally wrestled them into their beds to attempt a nap.  They fought it hard and I tried to settle the girls with a story.  I could hardly read aloud over the wails and whines so I told them we'd all crawl into Julia's bed.  That erupted both of them with giggles and soon they were just rolling around with each other and a nap seemed far out of the picture.  We opted for painting fingernails and applying temporary tattoos instead.

After that, it was time for the fun! 

Yeah, those hats didn't stay on entirely too well.  Half the time Lily thought it was funnier to see if she could balance it and the other half, Julia opted for the beret style tilt.

We wound up taking turns carrying the hats and the camera so we didn't clonk either of the girls on the head as we helped them up and down steps, so it was great having my mom along to help us with an extra set of hands.

Lily had the 'Trick-or-Treat', 'Thank you so much', and 'Happy Halloween' routine down pat by the second house and Julia was running right along.  She quickly learned that we went up to each house and how to hold her pumpkin bucket up for candy.

I really was amazed at how much fun they both had!  Especially since it was a first for both of them!  How different than the orphanage life Julia was experiencing just over a week ago!  And for Lily, it was all just something you saw in shows up until tonight.

When we first started, they were both giggling SO hard as they tried to run from house to house.  I was thinking that one or both may be a bit hesitant over the other kids in costumes or walking around in the dark, but neither of them could have cared less.  We walked the neighborhood until they both were ready to be carried from house to house!  With tired legs and empty bellies, we headed home for some dinner and bed was not so long after.  How are we ever going to break it to Lily that she's got a whole year to wait until it happens again?  Hope she'll go back to being satisfied by practice runs receiving sticky notes and DVD cases again.