More Halloween Fun

well, halloween was a BIG hit with annie. yes, she was a little shy when it came to saying her line, but she always remembered to say thank you, which is all i really wanted from her. it was a riot. we would ring the doorbell, remind her of her line and then when someone opened the door she would just turn all her focus on to the giant bowl of candy. sometimes we could get her to say "trick or treat", but sometimes we had to say it for her.

it was kind of nice to tool around our new neighborhood and meet some of our neighbors. at one house we got to chatting for a couple of minutes with the woman there, and the whole time we were chatting annie just kept taking pieces of candy out of the bowl. then, i'd say "ok annie, that's enough" and she'd stop - though not for one second would her eyes leave that bowl - and then as soon as we started chatting again, there goes her little hand right back into the bowl. she was bold, too. not just grabbing at any old piece of candy. no, she was examining each one to see if it had the potential to be something she would really like. she must have left that house with no less than 12 pieces of candy.

even though she was shy at the outset, every time she got candy in her pumpkin bucket, she would say "we go to the other house now?" and off we'd go. at one house, a 10-year old devil answered the door and annie was like "up". just like that she was over it. smart girl though...i mean, it's just common sense - if the devil offers you candy, you shouldn't take it. right? if she has that figured out at age 2, then maybe i can already stop worrying about her teenage years. yes!

we started the evening over at the cooper house. we used it as annie's practice. i have a video so you can see how it went down. let me just tell you this: you can barely hear it, but instead of annie saying "trick or treat" she kind of hums this little tune and goes "doo do doo-doo do" and i was laughing so hard at that because all week when we've been talking about the trick-or-treating and what do we say, etc. annie has always maintained that "i'm going to say boo and scare everybody and make them laugh!" and then she would hum this little tune. i had no idea if they had learned a song in school or something, but she always, always hummed it when we would talk about trick-or-treating. so then last night, when we get to niki and larry's house and the boys come to the door, annie just stands there - confused - and then you can barely hear her hum her little tune. it's right before cody puts the candy in her basket - you'll have to turn your volume way up. it was one of the funniest things ever. i love that girl. somewhere back in her mind she was like "you can do this. be scary and funny. the song! hum the song!" and then she did. and it was funny.

so, without further ado, here is annie's first real trick-or-treat:

here is a picture of my little geisha:
...and my little ninja:
and here is a good action shot of the cousins - cody is also a ninja, pres a red power ranger, annie the geisha and japper the ninja. together they are representing the far east - isn't that so odd?! anyway, i like this shot because annie is actually carrying herself very geisha-like. the placement of her hands and the tilt of her head. it cracks me.


all in all we had a good time. annie has way too much candy, japper was a rock star and we even got a decent showing at our house which was fun. good times...until jasper woke up at 2:45am with a 102 fever. little booger. i'm not sure if it's teething, a bug, an ear thing or what, but he was so sad. i gave him some tylenol, rocked him and then put him back down in our room in the porta crib. he finally went back down at about 3:45 and today he feels much better. he's been crawling around, giggling and playing and the fever is gone. hopefully it will stay gone. honestly these two. annie has been having gross, oozy blood stuff coming out of one of her ears. i know. the nurse assures me it is probably her ear tubes making their way out. ew. no one prepared me for blood. i thought her brain had liquified or something. blood coming out of the ears only means one thing to me. yikes. anyway, she's not hurting at all and then yesterday i was looking in there and - ew - there was a big ball of something grody just setting in there waiting to fall out...which is must have, because now it's gone. and so is the blood. how's that for some halloween gore?