Spooky Halloween Fun!

"Spooky" has been my catchall term this Halloween whenever we see something that Harrison might deem as scary. I didn't really explain the meaning to him but I am pretty sure that he understands spooky to mean a little creepy but all in good fun. Giant spider hanging above a door tangled in cobwebs? Spooky! Wicked Witch guarding a doorway? Spooky!

Halloween night we walked down the street to meet up with Amelie and Morgan so the three two-year-olds could trick-or-treat together. As toddlers, no one had really spooky costumes. Harrison was Simba, The Lion King (insert ROAR here), Amelie was Cinderella and Morgan was a ghost; everyone was too cute. We left the house at 6pm just before dusk to keep things light for the kiddos.

The very first house they went to, which also has young children living there, had an animatronic ghoulish skeleton guarding the door. It was only maybe 18" wide and 9" tall but it has an evil laugh, blinking lights and arms and head that wiggled about. Evidently it has a motion sensor so when the kids approached it went off and poor Morgan screamed and cried in terror while Amelie and Harrison backed away quick in alarm:

According to this photo Harrison decided to give it another look! After that fright, things calmed down a bit and the kids were enjoying the candy falling into their buckets. Then the bigger kids started prowling the streets. At one point, a boy of about eight walked away from a house as we were walking up and he was dressed as the scary killer ghost from the movie Scream and Harrison did NOT want to walk past that kid.

He was scared enough that the other little boy's mother had to ask her son to lift up his mask so Harrison could see his face and sure enough there was a tow headed boy smiling back. Spooky indeed!

Luckily the only other spooky thing they encountered was the fog machine on the return trip to Amelie's house. The kids loved playing in the fog and it was hard to get them to leave.

At this age, once around the neighborhood was plenty fun (about an hour) so we went home for some dinner. Every time the doorbell rang, Harrison would jump up from the table with a parent and run to to the front hall, pick up the candy dish, insist on opening the door himself and then (after a bout with some kids that grabbed lots of candy from his bowl), he would pick one candy bar and deposit it into each bucket, one by one, in a very responsible fashion.

 My Little Lion Man. I called him this to which he replied.

"No, I'm Simba! What's a Lion Man?"

 Adorable from the back!

 At our house, taking a candy from the bowl we left out

Harrison showing off his loot

Gavin also joined the group in his little blue monster costume. When I rehashed the night with Harrison the next morning, Harrison said that he and Gavin had to both ROAR since that's what lions and monsters do.