Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Halloween 2010

By K.J. Cardinal

I know Halloween was almost two weeks ago, but I still had to get this post up.

Well, the loyal followers of The Cardinal Blog had their voices heard as Leo donned his Candy Corn costume for his first Halloween, much to the dismay of his father.

Spiderman made a valiant late run in the online poll, but Candy Corn edged him out 33-31... Rudolph garnered a measly seven votes. Thanks to everyone who voted.

While this was Leo's first Halloween, the holiday ended up being all about Anna. She experienced Halloween festivities at Intel, downtown Hudson, daycare and of course Gerry Drive on Halloween night.

At Curious Kids, all the kiddos strutted their stuff in their Halloween costumes with Anna being "Tinkerbell." I finally got to snap a pic of Anna with her buddy Noah (AKA Woody), so it was a momentous occasion.

After the gathering at day care, we headed downtown for trick-or-treating at the local businesses in Hudson. With very long lines at every stop, Anna was able to eat the piece of candy she just received before we were even able to get to the next store. Thankfully she was tired and didn't mind us heading home a little sooner than anticipated.

Halloween night was once again a blast. As was the case two years ago, the highlight of the night for me came prior to trick-or-treating when we handed out candy at our house. Every time the trick-or-treaters would ring the doorbell, no matter where Anna was in the house, she'd scream and come running to see the kids.

This year I let Anna hand out the candy too, which was pretty comical. I would hold a big basket up for her and she would reach in and dish it out to the kids. Some kids would get one or two pieces, while someone would get seven or eight. There didn't seem to be a rhyme or reason, but I'm sure our "generosity" got mixed results from trick-or-treaters throughout town.

We had over 100 trick-or-treaters, which was awesome. We nearly ran out of candy and toward the end of the night, Anna was getting somewhat stingy with the candy and wouldn't even consider giving any kids the remaining few boxes of Nerds, as those were definitely her favorite candy of Halloween 2010.

All-in-all it was a very successful holiday. It took Anna a few days to come down from her sugar high, but there is still some Halloween candy in the house, which is always a parent's best friend as a bargaining chip.

Every year Halloween seems to get a little more exciting for us and I'm sure next year will be the best yet when Leo's walking around...