This year, Patrick actually decided what he wanted to be, although I think had I cared I could have forced him into something for one more year. (Not that I have any great urge to do so; the theme of his previous three Halloweens were 'what kind of costume can I get that is moderately cute and cheap?') Anyway, he wanted to be Woody from Toy Story. I had this idea that I could be Jessie and James could be Buzz Lightyear,which would have been pretty freaking hilarious, and they DO MAKE ADULT BUZZ LIGHTYEAR COSTUMES but they are EXPENSIVE and he wouldn't have been into it, so the extent of our costumes was a sparkly red cowboy hat I located at Target. ("Is that for dress-up?" James asked interestedly, when I got it home, clearly NOT thinking of Halloween...) If I had thought about it earlier, Audrey could have been Bullseye, but -- let's be realistic -- I'm not that creative or organized, and I had also already got a zebra costume that was so adorable I couldn't resist.
Since I AM cheap, and since the Woody costumes (for kids and adults!) are horrible cheap polyester things, I bought Woody pajamas for 10 bucks. They were cute.
Patrick has had different reactions to trick or treating. The first year, he was 10 months old so he didn't care. We took him around in the wagon to our neighbors who we like and showed him off and James got some candy. The second year, he was more into it, for about 5 houses. Last year, he was not into it AT ALL and cried after the first two houses so we went back home and I was fine with that because it was cold and raining. We handed out candy for a bit and then his friend next door came to get candy and he was SO! EXCITED! and we went all around the neighborhood again. Actually some form of that may have happened the last two years.
Anyway, he was super excited about the Woody costume, and we had procured candy to hand out to the trick-or-treaters, and we had carved our jack o'lanterns, so I thought it was all going to go well. We decided to try the 'downtown' trick or treat, because it was easy and early and we could go around the neighborhood later. Patrick's friend Will met us there. Patrick was super excited for about three minutes.
Then it was all, "I want to go home. Can we go home now?" James collected some candy for him with the help of a cute zebra and we were home by 6:30. It wasn't even dark. I went to light the pumpkins and both boys protested. They wanted no part of it. Audrey took the moment to decide she was hungry. So we shut the door, closed the curtains, turned off the lights and that was Halloween.
Audrey is cutting short my blog time again. Will add pictures later. I hope.
