A Halloween fit for a Princess!

A sure sign that it is fall are the costumes and candy of Halloween!  I actually really like Halloween, I know there are some people who aren't so fond of it, but particularly as a Mom, I enjoy watching the kids get all dressed up and run from house to house with the anticipation of collecting their loot!

One thing Lila loves is to pick out her costume each year.  We get several catalogs in the mail and when they come I give them to her and she will thumb through them deliberately looking for the
P-E-R-F-E-C-T costume!  This year she was a bit torn between Glinda the Good Witch and the Pink Princess you see below!  After much deliberation she settled on the Pink Princess and there were squeals when the costume was delivered!

Our Halloween celebrations began on Wednesday when the girls were able to wear their costumes to dance!  It is always fun to see the studio a buzz with all the kids in their costumes!

Dress up @ Dancers Edge

Halloween landed on a Friday this year, so Lila was excited to incorporate some Halloween orange (with pink, of course) into her uniform attire.  Her school also does a Halloween party in each classroom and then the parents are invited to attend the Halloween parade which each student gets the opportunity to strut their stuff!

All ready to celebrate Halloween at school!

The parade was so cute!  The kids walked through the gym with their classmates.  The oldest kids went first, so we saw our niece, Celia, dressed as the acclaimed Porsche designer Magnus Walker.  Celia is definitely her Daddy's girl.  My brother Jason is a huge car fanatic.  I can only imagine how proud he was that his daughter went as automotive innovator!

Our car girl, Celia, as Magnus Walker - don't know who that is?!
 (click here)

Next in line was our other niece, Ruby!  She was dressed up as a police officer -- she was looking so cute with her uniform and accessories!

Officer Ruby!

The Kindergartners weren't too far behind and before we knew it there was Princess Lila walking through the gym!  She was so excited to be showing off her beautiful costume to all of her friends.

Doing the princess wave!

Every Princess needs to be friends with Bat Girl!

After the school festivities we loaded Lila up and headed to TrueNorth for our annual Halloween party.  Each year a committee puts together a fun filled afternoon for the kids to come and trick-or-treat at the office.

TrueNorth Halloween-style

A quick pic with Grandpa & Laura

Could Mom's work be any cooler?  Coloring, candy, and cupcakes!

And last, but not least, we headed home to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood.  With this being our first Halloween here it was fun to try out a new tradition.  I won't lie, sometimes transitioning from the past traditions are hard on Lila, hard on all of us, but we are trying to be really open minded and are excited to create new memories!

Our new neighborhood has actually really blown us away with how involved (and proud) the homeowners are.  There are so many neat events throughout the year that allow everyone to get together and enjoy being neighbors and Halloween is included in that -- and it didn't disappoint! 

Ready to conquer the neighborhood!

The princess walking through "her" park!

Tradition - walking hand in hand with her Dad - there are some things that Mom just can't touch!

Visiting house after house after house...

A princess and her Daddy!

The neighborhood was decked out with all sorts of decorations and families were out and about to socialize and assist their kids in their quest for candy!  There was even a half way point in the neighborhood where they had set up a fire pit in a drive way with hot drinks to go and soup to warm up on, if you were hungry.  What a fun evening in our new neighborhood!

Success!!!

Halloween 2013

This year the Halloween festivities were in abundance!  Not only did we have our own family fall traditions that we continued, but it seemed like there were more and more opportunities to celebrate the holiday, which meant more and more reasons for Lila to wear her costume!!!

We let Lila pick what she wanted to be for Halloween this year.  The options ranged from Alice in Wonderland to a Princess to a cute kitty.  The kitty won and I maintain it is because it had the best tulle skirt...she can't help herself, she loves all things tulle!

Getting her whiskers!

Pretty Kitty!

Our first Halloween party was the annual TrueNorth party!  The office puts so much time and thought into creating a fun event for the kids.  It includes Halloween themed snacks, a craft of some sort, and pictures to document all the fun and great costumes!

Lila & Ruby

Smiling with Grandpa!

Darling girls, darling costumes!

Lila's {happy} bat from TrueNorth!

We also made time this year for carving pumpkins!  Lila is enough of a girlie girl that the guts of the pumpkin were definitely not her favorite part, but she was still excited about picking out her personal pumpkin and what the carving should look like!

Diving in!

Spooky Cat!

The Eddins Family pumpkins!

Proud of the pumpkins!

The Sunday before Halloween Lila developed a bad cough.  We loaded her up and took her to the doctor to discover that she had double ear infections.  We were so happy that we took her in so they could get her on medication and hopefully get her better before trick-or-treating on Thursday!

A fun headband/glasses piece that Lila created at school!  BOO!!!

Thankfully by Wednesday Lila was feeling good enough to go back to school, and most importantly, go to dance with Henley!  Dance is always one of her favorite things to do, but it was also the dance class where they could wear their costumes!  For dance Henley also dressed up as a kitty, so they were twins! 

Cute Cats!

Best Buddies!

Finally!  It was Halloween and time to go trick-or-treating!  The Pfeiler's invited us to come down to their house for soup and trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.  Lila could hardly contain her excitement to trick-or-treat with Sloan.  We spent Halloween with her last year and she loved showing Sloan the ropes!

All ready to go door to door!

The kiddos in their costumes!

A cat and her mouse!  They absolutely love one another!

Here we go!  How many pieces of candy can we get?!

The kids had quite the entourage!

The buckets are starting to fill up!

This year the weather had been rainy all day, but we were fortunate that it stopped by the time we headed out for trick-or-treating.  However, it was pretty breezy outside, so the kids decided that they would hit a few houses, but that it was just as fun to go back to the house and play and hand out candy to the other kids!

Lila & Mommy!

A successful Halloween night!

The thing I love the most about holidays are the traditions that we continue and the new ones that we create!  We have so many great memories with our family and friends and this year was no exception! 

Halloween!

This Halloween was one in which I thought I would still have some control over what Lila's costume would be, boy was I wrong!!  I originally had her convinced that she would be Audrey Hepburn circa Breakfast at Tiffany's, it was the most darling costume with a big tulle skirt, pearls, a little tiara, and don't forget the oversized black sunglasses!  I was getting ready to order the costume on Etsy and Lila was in the living room with me and I said, "okay, Mom is going to order your costume!"  That statement was met with a pouty lip and what could have turned into tears.  I of course asked her what was wrong and she said, "Mom, I want to be Belle for Halloween."  I was officially disappointed!  I am not sure what disappointed me more, the fact that she didn't want to wear this darling costume or the fact that she had an opinion and she is growing up?!  After she claimed she wanted to be Belle, she then said, "I will be Audrey Hepburn next year!"  Once that statement came out of her mouth, I almost felt guilty...she had no idea who Audrey Hepburn is, I needed to concede!  So, the quest for a new costume began.  We spent some time looking into Belle costumes, but we weren't finding much of anything, she then changed it up on me again and asked to be a ballerina.  DONE!  It couldn't get much easier than that!

 

So, that is just what we had!  A beautiful ballerina who couldn't have been happier in her costume!  In fact, she loved it so much she wore it for basically a week straight!  Thank goodness we had so many opportunities to show off our costume!  Our festivities started the Friday before Halloween at TrueNorth.  We picked up Celia after school and took her with us to trick or treat in the building and experience each of the areas and their themes.  There was a Wizard of Oz theme, Vintage Halloween, Candyland, Super hero, it was quite the party!

 

 

At the entrance of the Emerald City!

 

Kindermusik is Monday nights, so the class was encouraged to wear their costumes that evening to class!  All of the kids looked so cute!  What is normally a rowdy group was a bit shy with all their costumes on, it was kind of cute!



 

 

Tuesday had us packing her costume up to go to preschool with her!  She couldn't wait to show her teachers and classmates her dance moves!  And finally, it was the BIG day!  She had been so patient waiting for Halloween to roll around.  She kept telling her Daddy that he was the one going with her because he would hold her hand and accompany her as she goes to each door, of course Mike eats that up!

 

We got our little ballerina all ready and after a few pictures on the porch it was time to head out.  I was planning on staying back to hand out candy, but Mike and Lila convinced me to put the candy out on the porch, honor system style, and tag along.  So, off we went!

 



 

 

 

We made a quick stop at the Pfeiler house to trick-or-treat, but to also get a quick peek of Sloan in her darling outfit and get a picture of the two girls together!

 

Tu-tu Cute!

We were about 10 houses into our trick or treating when our neighbor told us that the power was completely out on our street.  What?!  Yes, out!  Which meant we were locked out of our house!!!  When we left the doors were all locked and we put the garage door down, we weren't getting in!  So, we spent some time hanging out on the front porch handing out candy to the kids who were willing to wander down the dark street! 

We're not afraid of the dark!

 

Our little girl was starting to get cold, so back to the Pfeiler's we went!  They welcomed us in so we could get warmed up, but it wasn't long before the kids were ready to go door to door again!  Quel had Sloan all bundled up in a wagon and Lila was thrilled she was willing to share her wheels! 

 



 

Racquel's cousins, Lexi & Tori, were along, too.  They are both such sweet girls and do so well with the little ones!  We all stopped by the Eddins house (the power was back on) to snap a picture on the front porch of all the girls together!

 

 

Even though our night didn't go quite as planned, we had a great time spending it with good friends!  Sometimes the impromptu get togethers are the ones that bring along the best memories!



The ______ Lady!

This year for Halloween our Little Lady was a Pink Lady!  She could not have looked any cuter than she did!  I know that the costume choice wasn't the traditional Disney princess, but I figured if I get another year to help guide her costume choice I was going to take full advantage...I couldn't help myself!

Her costume fun started last Tuesday night when we went to Kindermusik.  The kids were welcome to wear their costumes to class!  There were lots of cute little ones there all curious to see what their friends had picked out to wear!

On Halloween night we weren't so sure if Lila would be up for trick-or-treating, but we got her candy bag all ready and off we went around the neighborhood to collect some goodies!  Mike's grandparents stopped by to see our little 50's sweetheart, so they helped Mike walk Lila around a little more while Mommy went back to the house to be sure to hand out candy to all the other little ghosts & goblins!

Eat your heart out, Rizzo!

Such a poser!

Trick-or-Treat!

She didn't last all that long out and about, but she came home with a few yummy treats in her bag and enjoyed handing out the candy with Daddy for the rest of the evening! 

Lila may have been a Pink Lady for Halloween, but I was one Spoiled Lady for my birthday!  On Saturday, the 29th, my girlfriends picked me up and treated me to an amazing day at the spa!  They had lunch brought in and we all had massages.  It was truly wonderful!  We snuggled up on the furniture in the relaxation room, all got pampered and got caught up on some gossip!

Blindfolded on my way to the spa!

After our afternoon at the spa we all went back home and got cleaned up and ready to go out for the night!  Racquel had agreed to drive the "bus" around for the night considering she is preggers and was up for being the responsible party for the evening!  We dropped Lila off at Grandpa & Laura's and off we went!

Our chariot!

Lila playing Barbies with Carson and Carly

We had decided to have dinner in Mount Vernon at Lincoln Cafe.  Our first stop before heading to dinner was the Lincoln Wine Bar to pick up a few provisions for dinner!  We settled on a few bottles of wine and had a cooler packed with beer.

At the wine bar

'Food is Important' is their slogan - boy are they right!

There wasn' t a single detail forgotten, they even got me a delicious cake to celebrate my milestone birthday!

After dinner it was back to Cedar Rapids to enjoy a night out.  Considering it was Halloween weekend the bars were full of people in costumes!  In fact, we were definitely out numbered!  Taylor even made friends with a guy in a chicken suit!

We had so much fun that by the end of the night the pictures ended up looking like this!

All of the material gifts I received for my birthday were absolutley wonderful, but there truly isn't a better gift than the love I receive from my husband, my family and my friends. All of them made sure that I had a birthday for the memory books!  I am one LUCKY Lady!