Happy Halloween! Want some candy?

Vi had an excellent, excellent Halloween.

Starting with a good mood, and lot of energy, Vi snuggled, mostly naked, on the sofa with Daddy for a book and a banana. Super happy campers.

Louise (Mumsy) came for Vi at 10, and they went off for swim class. We had a few minutes to ourselves, then hurried to the pool for the photo ops.

For the next several weeks, Vi and Mumsy will have the morning to themselves, as will we!

What a great thing.

I just have to say, Vi looks so much like a photo of her great-grandmother Gay Badenhop, Dan's maternal grandmother, here:

After swimming class, we went home and had lunch, then I put Vi down for a nap. A very successful put-down, by the way. We are now able, since the epic battle of 2009, to tuck her in, say night-night, and walk out of the room. She goes to sleep. On her own. Really.

We folded laundry and did dishes, then we laid down for a rest, too. About an hour later, I heard a little cough near my head. I thought, "That's a strange noise for the dog to make." Then I heard it again. I rolled over, and there was Vi, staring and smiling in my face. "Hi," she whispered. "I awake." She climbed in bed with us, and yelled to Dan, "WAKE UP - I KISS YOU!!" She practiced some butterfly kisses on us, saying "blink, blink, blink, blink" the whole time.

I made Vi some hot cocoa (because she saw Dan having some), and left her to drink it. When I came back, she was saying "I need a paper towel," and her face was covered in white granules. I realized that I had left her to drink her cocoa next to the sugar bowl...oops. She had gotten a spoon and was eating sugar by the mouthful. Getting a head start on Halloween, I guess!

Many of you know the story of Vi's costume - Last week, I was doing some preventative damage control, and explaining the whole Halloween dress-up thing to Vi. I started to tell her what her options for costumes were, and she interrupted me to say, "I wanna be a monkey." A good friend ordered a monkey costume and had it shipped to us. She had a store credit with a costume company and wanted to get rid of it. (Can you hear the foreshadowed doom? Or is that just my hindsight kicking in...) Here is what arrived at 5 pm on Thursday, approximately 16 hours before the Halloween parade at day care:

My good friend Adrianne was to the rescue, with her creativity and sewing skills. We were able to take the brown fabric and "fur" from the costume above and create a super-cute monkey costume for Vi in the nick of time.

Grammy and Papou came over in the afternoon (with candy and a cupcake!) , and we played dress-up, carved a pumpkin, and got ready for trick-or-treating. We made Grammy and Papou dress up:

Her little tail would wag whenever she wiggled or giggled. It was super-cute and had Dan near tears all night.

One of the highlights of my evening was dressing MYSELF up. I've been a sexy/slutty witch many years in a row now, and this year was no exception. I lost a ton of weight (okay, not 2,000 pounds, but close...) and when I put on the costume, I realized that for many years in a row now, I've been a pudgy witch who wants to look sexy...ha! It was pretty funny. THEN, a little girl came to the door trick-or-treating. She said, "I like your outfit - what are you?" I said, "I'm a witch." Without hesitation she said, "Yeah, a HOT witch!" Her mother's jaw hit the floor. It was hysterical. Her mother said, "What a nice compliment, sweetie...even if it is coming from a 7-year old girl..." Oh, god, I'm still giggling about that one.

We took Vi trick-or-treating to four houses. The first was Dick & Terry's, where we spend a lot of time, anyway. Vi knocked and said, "trick or treat! come on in!" and walked right in. Wandered over to the sofa, found a bag of chips and started eating them. Helped herself. We went to the next house, and she thought we were supposed to go inside and visit. It was pretty funny. The last two houses, she shushed a barking dog, and blew lots of kisses and shouted "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" to everyone. We went back to Dick & Terry's house to visit for the evening. Vi helped hand out candy to all the kids. She love it. She would gasp, her jaw would drop, and she would run to the door saying "More kids!" The kids would knock on the door, and Vi would knock back, saying "Trick or treat! Want some candy? Come on in!" She handed out candy, said "you're welcome" and "happy halloween" to a few kids, and was so excited to participate. We were all in hysterics over her excitement all evening.

At 8:00, I told her it was almost time to go home for a bath and go to bed. I asked, "are you tired?" She said "N0," then started walking to the door and quickly said, "'Night, guys. I wanna take a bath."

Bath and jammies, one quick ABC story, and she was down.

As for me, this HOT witch (Did I tell you that story yet? About me being HOT?) is going to bed.

'Night, guys. More pictures HERE.