Hallowe'en Princess

This year was Delphine's first real Hallowe'en — last year we skipped it altogether because Cordelia was only a month old, and the year before we dressed Delphine up and dragged her out to a few friends' houses, but she was tired and not too pleased with all the strangers.

This time she was into it; she dressed as a princess (her idea, and "coincidentally" her two best friends at daycare were also dressed as princesses). I went all out and bought a fancy costume; previously I have sworn that buying costumes is lame, but since then I have realized that a Hallowe'en costume doubles as a dress-up toy for year-round play, so it isn't so ridiculous to spend some money for a quality ensemble. Plus this will fit her for years: fairy princess, medieval princess, punk princess (after it starts to get ragged).

We started the night at Delphine's friend Ursa's house, where we were met by their friend Azale (thus completing the trio of princesses). We all went out: Delphine, Cordelia, Blake and I, Ursa, Ursa's mum, Azale, Azale's mum and grandmother, and we were joined later by Morgan and Baba. The girls really got into it (with some coaching: "What do you say?" "Trick or treat!" "What do you say now?" "Sank you!")

We got a good half-grocery-bag full of candy, including some Lindt squares, two full-sized candy bars (which we had to confiscate on the grounds that that's far too much chocolate for a three-year-old — for her own good, of course), and some of those fruit bars, along with the usual assortment of fun (fun!) sized candy bars, Nibs, Tootsie Rolls (does anyone eat them when it's not Hallowe'en?), hard candies and Rockets.

Delphine was exhausted by the time we got home (but not before stopping at Starbucks to beg a free kid's hot chocolate with two helpings of whipped cream and chocolate syrup) so she only had a couple of pieces of candy before collapsing.

I had decided that she could have a piece of candy every day for the month of November, with any leftovers probably going to Blake's office, but as it turns out she's only asked a couple of times. Good thing, too, because Blake and I have been stealing her loot shamelessly.

We also dressed Cordelia up for Hallowe'en; it was Kathryn's idea to dress her as a garden gnome because of her rosy round cheeks and pointed ears. I bought her a red hat and a white beard and she looked adorable, but perhaps not surprisingly, she hated the costume. We got some pictures of a very sad little gnome, which I will post, but we didn't manage to keep her suited up long enough to take her out. That's okay, since she can't have any candy anyway.