Boo! Spooky!

Those are among Annie's new favorite words since Halloween, so I figured they were an appropriate title for this post :) In my view, really one of the best parts about Halloween with a kid is that I feel absolutely NO reason to dress in a costume myself. Score! I really usually hate dressing up in costume, so this is a big win for me. I THOUGHT Ben felt the same way as me, but then he went and dressed up for work! The costumes they came up with were totally hilarious, ESPECIALLY Rett as Susan Boyle. Check them out!

Anyway, Halloween now is mostly about Annie, who coincidentally enough has no clue what's going on still, but luckily seemed to enjoy herself :) Her Halloween celebrations started on Friday afternoon with a little party at daycare. I sent along Annie's costume, and apparently she was quite insistent that it come OFF! OFF! OFF! as soon as it was on, so that was that :) I did bring in my phone to take a few pics of the girls, so I got a few cute ones of them playing outside - it looked like no one was really too into wearing their costume anyway :)

2 of the older girls (nearly 3 and nearly 4) pushing Annie and her pal, around 14 months - Annie can actually turn this herself, but I think she enjoyed going FAST!


Another of the nearly 3 year olds in the CUTEST BOOTS EVER. Pretty sure they are these, which used to be available in brown but now it looks like only black. Sad. Tots in boots are pretty much amazing.


Climbed up the big slide for ONE MORE SLIDE before I made her leave :)


While Annie didn't want to wear her costume, she certainly enjoyed her Halloween treat bag from Sue, including a spider ring, bat necklace and a few pairs of Halloween socks! (and candy that I stole! :)

On Sunday, we had a Halloween party at Nate & Molly's, but first we went out to breakfast since we were OUT OF COFFEE (horror!!) and got this super cute pic of Annie, who apparently was VERY excited to be at the Egg & I!

Before the party, we had some baking to do - I whipped up a double batch (because the original recipe would make like 5 cookies) of these chocolate sugar cookies, a quick vanilla buttercream that I colored orange, and had Annie help me with the sprinkles - super easy, fun for Annie, and delicious! (note - the dough is pretty sticky, so I had to use a lot of flour, and I kept plastic wrap over the top too, which helped)

Annie loved sprinkling - I had to make sure to keep rotating in new cookies or else one would end up with a huge mound of sprinkles on it. Can't wait to make Christmas cookies with her!

So, as I've mentioned before, Annie isn't exactly a kid that grows too rapidly, so I knew we could probably squeeze another year out of her Halloween costume - as a refresher, here she is last year!

OMG the CHEEKS.


And here she is now! I was surprised at how small this costume actually was - while it is baggy, the hat was a bit too small, the neck couldn't be snapped, and the pants and dress were definitely a bit too short. Good to know that the child HAS grown! :)


Observe - not snapped and riding up in the back :) I was just glad she agreed to put it on!


We made the long trek over to Nate & Molly's!


She looks so funny with all her hair sticking out :)


Thanks to Mindy for loaning me Abby's shoes for the occasion!


This is the face Annie makes when she absolutely does not want to be interrupted to take a picture but I keep saying "ANNIE ANNIE ANNIE LOOK AT ME SAY CHEESE LOOK AT MOMMY" and then she's like "CHEEEEEEEEEEESE!!!!!!!" very angrily, like "Take the GD PICTURE ALREADY OMG!"


Whenever a bumbo comes out, Annie has to sit in it :)


A mini slumber party :)


Enjoying the fruits of her labor!


VERY EXCITED about her cookie!


My cookie (the adult ones were big, I made little ones for the kiddos if they were going to have one)


Semi successful group photo!


After the boys ran off and baby Alice starting crying - Annie was worried about her :)


Sitting by the fire!


A night cap of ring around the rosie


And a ride on the rocking horse!

On the actual day of Halloween, Annie went to daycare in her newly purchased and very appropriate "Scaredy Cat" shirt :) and then we headed down the street for a block party that was a great alternative to trick or treating! We re-used yet another costume for that one, since it was warmer than her Raggedy Ann costume.

Chunky baby bumblebee from last year!


Bumblebee now - wanting to come UP! Definitely too short and tighter, but those Old Navy costumes are pretty forgiving!


Annie was wary of the block party and wanted to be held most of the time.




Annie was really only happy with this little cup of milk in her hands, or a pretzel or cupcake...


Finally got a quick snap of Annie and the dog dressed as a bumblebee that she was scared of :)


One of the houses near us goes ALL OUT for every holiday, so we did walk over there to have Ben take Annie through the "Haunted house" while I stayed put outside :)

It was a really fun Halloween! I think next year we will actually take Annie trick or treating, which will be great. I was a bit sad we didn't this year because I wanted the candy, but oh well :) Probably for the best that we didn't!