Halloween take 3!

This was Austin's third Halloween.  The first year we took him trick-or-hugging in his Smokey Bear costume since he was about 9 months old and definitely got no candy.  Last year we took him trick-or-treating in his dinosaur costume for about 3 houses of our friends, more just to say hi, he really didn't get into it.  So I had great expectations that Austin would really get the concept of trick-or-treating this year and we could go around the neighborhood and do some serious trick-or-treating.

  

Not-so-much!  We started out by driving to Dustin's co-workers house who is a big holiday fanatic.  Her yard was decked out:

 

It's hard to see the details, but she had a bunch of motion activated ghouls and goblins all over her yard.  Austin started to walk up to the house, but then ran back to the car crying.  I picked him up and he was so scared he was trembling.  I tried to calm him down and comfort him, but all he wanted was to get back in the safety of our car.  Finally Dad came and talked him into going in if Dad carried him and he agreed to that.

Miss Tanya hooked him up with a bunch of candy, which was a good thing since this was one of two house that he agreed to trick-or-treat at.  We stayed to visit with Tanya and family for a bit and Austin enjoyed spending quality time with Princess:

 

She is the best kid dog ever.  We have played with her a few times and she will take a toddler beating and never growls, snaps or anything.  Austin hugged her and petted her and even stepped on her tail and she just ate up the attention.

We went to one other house of some friends, which Austin was luke warm to.  Then we drove home planning to walk to a few houses in our immediate neighborhood, but Austin was done.  He refused to walk out of our driveway and instead enjoyed passing out candy from the safety and comfort of our house.

We had about 12 or so trick-or-treaters last year before we left for a party and left our remaining candy in a bowl on  the porch for who ever still stopped by.  I decided this year since we have so few trick-or-treaters, that instead of buying the little snack sized candy, I bought a pack of full sized candy bars at Costco.  The box I got had Butterfingers, Crunch, and Baby Ruth bars.  It was so fun to see the kids' faces light up when they saw the full sized bars, we were definitely a popular house.  We ended up having 23 trick-or-treaters which was a good amount for our little community.  

We let Austin eat some of his candy which or course led to a huge sugar crash tantrum when it came time to take off his costume and take a bath.  When I finally gave up and decided to just put him to bed in the costume he simmered down and willingly took a bath and brushed teeth.  The tantrum was so bad it was laughable.  Dustin and I just looked at each other and giggled as Austin was flailing and screaming, I mean what else can you do but let them get it out of their system, right?

So now I'm hoping that Christmas goes better.  He has been cold to opening gifts and getting into the whole Christmas kid mode the last two years as well, and I was also hopeful that this would be the year he gets over that, but now that Halloween was a backfire I am not as hopeful.