Halloween Fall Festival

Last Wednesday night our church held its annual Fall Festival. We had already bought Lilli's lion costume (for her to be the Cowardly Lion) but were having no success getting her to wear it. I'm talking crying, laying on the ground, fits of kicking.Unless of course we held her upside down. Then it's all happy, happy, fun, fun. Of course you really can't hold a kid upside down for an entire evening.
So, on the way home from work Wednesday we stopped at the ghetto Rite-Aid in our neighborhood. I figured they'd have some semi-cheap outfits and I hit that nail on the head. Most of their Halloween stuff was already 50% off, and they had a wide array of 3 toddler girl costumes to choose from - an angel, bee or ladybug. I asked her which one she would wear and she said "No" so then I made her pick one and she picked ladybug. So for a whopping $7.50 investment I had a second costume for her this year. I thought since it was more dress-like she wouldn't mind as much. As if.
It was the wings and tu-tu that set her off. She just doesn't like dress up. So we let her cry it out in the floor for about 20 minutes while we finished getting cleaned up and once I pulled out a new book I had also bought at Rite Aid it was enough to get her past it and we were all fine.

Pretty much all the games and things are for older kids, so we just modified stuff so she could do it. If the object was to throw a ring on a pumpkin we'd just have her walk up and do it. Her hair is getting so long....in the back! That little curl stretches halfway down her back when it's wet in the tub!
They always have cotton candy and popcorn so we let her have some cotton candy. She LOVES it!
And wanted to share with me. When we got home that night I realized my arm was SUPER sticky.
Lilli's little friend Evelyn having some snacks....
She really liked the little "toss the ring on the spider" game. She was very meticulous about how she put the rings on the legs.
She was having such a great time!
They had a little bounce house and she and her little friend Haven had such a great time in there, they could have stayed in that bounce house forever.


Our night came to an abrupt end when after a REALLY long time we made her get out of the bounce house. She was pretty much madder than a wet hen, it was 15 minutes before her usual bedtime (8 pm) and she just wasn't going to get over the injustice of not being able to spend the rest of her life in the bounce house. We gave her a few opportunities to move on from the fit and when she wouldn't we left and came home. She definitely understands the options and choices we give her now, and when she just can't "recover" she understands the consequences so we are being as consistent as possible and sticking with the "punishment" - in this case quit your bellyaching or we're going home. So, we didn't quite make it to every center but it was getting late and a school night for her, so it's probably best.

After she went to bed I finished putting together the goody bags for her little classmates at daycare and the big pumpkin basket for her teacher. It's a lot easier to do stuff now that she's at an in-home daycare and just has a couple of other kiddos with her every day. The goody-bags consisted of some of the home-made sugar cookies we had made, some candy and Teddy Grahams, candy corn and Ghost shaped marshmallows.