Sadie took forever this year deciding what she wanted to be for Halloween. I honestly cannot remember all the different possibilities she came up with. I know Belle was in the running for a long time... But, when we saw a long blond wig with a braid in the store, it was decided: Rapunzel. She already had a dress, so that was fine with me!
As we do each year, we went to our church's Trunk or Treat and fall festival the Wednesday night before Halloween. They start with trick or treating out in the parking lot, but instead of going house-to-house, you go trunk-to-trunk. We were a little late, sadly, and got there as many were packing up, but Sadie still got a decent amount of candy. Here she is, the Tangled version of Rapunzel, frying pan and all!
Inside, they had food, games, crafts, and various activities for all the kiddos. It truly is amazing how much work goes into the event! It is so much fun and our church family tends to grow from this event. Visitors who come this night come back to visit on Sunday and decide to stay, which is always the ultimate goal!
I did not realize that cousin Bess had planned on being Rapunzel as well. Luckily, it did not cause a problem... Can you guess whose long blond hair is real and whose is fake??? Ha! I straightened that wig all night long and it made no difference...
Sadie and Avery could not give us a cutesy pose. So, I guess this is considered scary? Note: The wig disappeared, so we decided she became Rapunzel after Flynn (aka Eugene) cut off her hair...
(I really really wanted Sadie, because of her teeth, to be a vampire or, better yet, Mama Odie, the voodoo woman from The Princess and the Frog, but she refused. I can't blame her, but I still I think she would have made the perfect Mama Odie!!!)
I forced the family to carve a pumpkin this year (no one was interested last year... boo hiss). Sadie drew the face, Brad carved, and I cleaned and roasted the seeds (and ate them all on my own). I think the jack-o-lantern's smile was a self-portrait... It seemed to be missing the same number of teeth as Sadie!
We did not bother to go trick or treating on Halloween night since Sadie got candy from the church event and was going to go trick or treating the next night at, ahem, Disney World's Magic Kingdom, so we opted to stay in. I desperately needed to pack for our trip as well, so we decided to leave candy out on the porch for the neighborhood kids to help themselves. We thought this would also save Sadie a few nightmares. In the past, she would help me hand out candy when the doorbell rang, but would become haunted later that night by some of the scary costumes she saw.
My prayer mom from school (kinda like a secret pal, but not a secret) gave me this cool Hocus Pocus book as a gift - when you open it, it creaks and a witch cackles, so Brad filled it with candy and put a sign beside it, "Please take one if you dare":
I must say, I was highly impressed with the kids in our neighborhood. Brad and Sadie decided to watch from inside our dark house, and Brad said the kids really did only take one piece of candy at a time.
But then he and Sadie came up with a plan: to scare the older kids...
When the older ones would open the book, Sadie would flick the porch lights on and off and Brad would make the alarm go off on his car (parked in the driveway). Oh my... I do not know which was more hilarious: The kids' reactions or Sadie's! Sadie nearly died laughing every time.
But it took them a while to perfect their craft and one boy, holding a basketball (so I guess he was a plain clothed basketball player... some of these kids don't even seem to try with their costumes anymore) got so scared, he ran off without grabbing any candy! After that happened, the new rule was to do the scary stuff after they got their candy and were about to walk away.
However, poor, compassionate Sadie still brings up "The boy with the basketball who didn't get any candy" and adds, "I just can't stop thinking about him!" I have tried to assure her that, no doubt, he got plenty of candy from other houses, but she is still haunted by that image to this day. Back to the drawing board!