Happy Halloween... and Scissors, our new pet!

Well, another Halloween has come and gone, our Tinkerbell and baby chick had a great time cruising the neighborhood and then cruising the car trunk line at church. You can't really tell, but I'm dressed as a Hogwarts student from Harry Potter. I have a red Harry Potter cape and I made a wooden wand. I even tied my own tie! (Thank goodness for the Internet). Elia loved going door-to-door and wasn't discouraged in the least when people weren't home. She was very good about saying "trick-or-treat", "thank-you", and "happy halloween" (people really loved when she said that).
Ethan picked up quickly on the idea of gathering candy. He wanted to eat it at first, but then we told him he had to put it in the bag, so he would hold out his hand, get the candy and put it in the bag. Then he would stop about five feet away from the door and try to take it out!

Our friends the Nielsens came over to join us for our neighborhood trick-or-treating. Robbie and Natalie came as a cute cowboy/cowgirl duo. We were very impressed that Natalie left her hat on the whole time!

Wow, how lucky! Three kids looking at the same time!

We went trick-or-treating first, then came home to pass out candy to the trick-or-treaters who came by our house. I didn't want to buy a huge bag of candy, but I did buy these cool glow-in-the-dark eye tatoos (you can kind of see one on Elia's arm in the picture above). So, when we got home, we sorted through our candy and gave most of what we didn't want away to those who came to our house, along with the tatoos. I'm sure they enjoyed getting a handful of candy (they didn't know they were getting our rejects) and I just didn't want a huge bag of left over candy at our house! The effects of candy fever will linger for long enough without additional candy to fuel it. We told Elia she could eat all the candy she wanted last night, but starting today she can only have a piece or two after lunch every day.

In other news, a new pet joined our family yesterday. Meet "Scissors":
This friendly little jumping spider joined Elia in her room yesterday. I had seen it before her nap and it was right on her pillow! Though I was freaked out, I appeared calm because I didn't want her to freak out. I moved the pillow and it disappeared. I looked all through her bed and on the floor, but couldn't find it. (She kept asking me what I was looking for, and I don't know what I said, but I didn't tell her it was a spider... talk about a nap inhibitor)! In the middle of her nap, I heard her calling me... turns out, "Scissors" as she would later be named is now on her window. I capture her and Elia asks if we can keep her for a pet. See, Elia loves bugs! I don't want her to know that many times, they creep me out, but I want her to not freak out about them, so for example, when she saw the cockroach and wanted to keep him, I calmly caught it and we gave it some leaves and kept him in a jar for a couple of days. When we went to the bug lab, they had these huge Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches and Elia like them so much she held one twice! So, when she woke up and came downstairs to see the spider I asked what we would name it. She saw the scissors laying next to the "cage" and pronounced that that would be her name. Actually, I thought it was a pretty great name especially since it was Halloween! This morning, I took a few pictures of her before Elia released her outside in the garden. I should mention that after I caught her I did a little research on-line to identify what type she was. I found out that she wasn't harmful. (And yes, it is a girl... the female's eyes are greenish). I actually think this research made me like her A LITTLE more which made me more able to take a picture of her (though I was still leary about having her jump on me) so you could all enjoy our visiting pet.