The 'Ei's Have It: Halloweeen Hit the Mark!

I think that the older Allie gets, the more fun Halloween becomes. As Chris often says, 'She has your holiday gene.' This kid loves a good celebration and holidays top the list. We kicked off the fall celebrations with our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. I remember propping her up against a pumpkin the first time we went, times have definitely changed...

Al and Olivia...never gets old.

She found 'the one.'

And the two...

Seasonal selfie.

She was very excited to carve her pumpkin...no matter how small and how under-ripe.

Daddy made it happen.

We also toughed out the lines at our community town center's Fall Fest and were rewarded with a painted face and huge smiles.

Rainbows AND unicorns...somebody pinch her.

Pre-blown-up-dragon-bounce-obstacle-thing excitement.

When you work in a high school, you have a few more 'seasons' than others. Homecoming season is one of them. This year, I picked up Allie early from her school and brought her back to Heritage with me so she could witness the madness...Powder Puff cheerleaders (boys dressed as girls in fishnet tights and tutus doing cheer-leading 'routines') and all. She loved it.

After the pep rally, we went to work to help the SCA prepare for the Homecoming tailgate, tailgated, and then headed over to the football game, or as Allie experienced it, the cheer-leading-game.

'What? These are all for me, right?'

Getting all tatt-ed up for the big game.

As if we needed any more excitement, this was Allie's weekend to take home the class dolphin, 'Echo.' So naturally, Echo came to the football game with us.

Here's Echo...right before...

He was tossed aside for 'poms.' (Apparently over the past 20 years, they have dropped the second 'pom'...who knew?)

Allie has taken a huge shine to the cheerleaders and they have been so sweet to her every time we go to the games. She hops out onto the track right along beside them and this time, they lent her her very own set of 'poms' and tried to teach her a cheer or two. She's got the spirit part of the gig in the bag, the moves...are a work in progress.

Al wrote 'all about it' for her homework page about her weekend with Echo.

Pre-K homework pride.

Daisy was mesmerized by her work.

And...

by that...

fake nose.

The last dance class before Halloween is the 'spooooo-ky dance performance' class. (Really, it's a normal class where all of the girls wear their costumes, but Allie has a tendency to add dramatic flair to events, so she renamed it...this probably does not surprise you at this point...nor does the fact that every time she mentioned it, she made ghost noises and waved her hands back and forth to set the scene.)

This year's Halloween costume was Merida, the spunky, headstrong, and fierce princess in Disney's movie Brave (it came down to Merida or Wednesday from The Addams Family musical, but Merida won). We celebrated another Halloween wearing a Grandmom Wintrode original costume. The wig, well that was Amazon, but it turned out to be the most fun $16 I've spent in a while.

Watch out, she and her arrows are on the loose.

Allie got good use out of her costume this year. Dance class was on Wednesday, her school's Halloween party and parade were on Friday, and then, of course, Halloween wrapped up the week of festivities on Saturday.

This Merida's all smiles with her sugar-feast.
(Mommy and Daddy are the real Brave ones to deal with the aftermath.)

Allie and parades...like peas and carrots.

That hair...

Since the summer, Allie has gotten to know our neighborhood crew, and has spent a lot of time playing outside with her buddies. This year, we actually went trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood, complete with a block-party, and an after-party dance-fest. She was on cloud nine...until it was time to go to bed...but we'll focus on the pre-bedtime fun. She had a blast.