Aurora Wells

Aurora asks me this question every. Single. Day. She never says, “Mommy, I want to be Buzz Lightyear.” Every day, sometimes several times, it’s always exactly the same, “Mama, who can I be from Toy Story?” I’ve learned my lines pretty well: “You can be Buzz, and I’ll be Woody.” “I want to be the Old Buzz!” “Okay, you can be Old Buzz.” Daddy has more variation in his script. Sometimes he’s “New Buzz” (the one in Toy Story 2), sometimes Rex, or one of the other supporting characters.

So, luckily for all of us, this conversation didn’t change from the time, in July, that Aurora decided that she should be Buzz Lightyear for Halloween. Mommy would, of course, be Sheriff Woody, the cowboy doll, and Daddy, well, what should he be? Then I found it; at Value Village, a Rex head. Not just any dinosaur mask – this was definitely the Rex from Toy Story. We had it made!

Maybe she should have been a hockey player? Sorry, kiddo. We’ve already got your costume. Thanks to Stephanie and her family, for the use of their old Buzz costume. She grew so quickly from July to October that I didn’t even need to take it in!

At our Halloween Potluck on Saturday night, Aurora and Kate play doctor with Aurora’s new doctor set, practicing on Teddy Bear and Miga. Kate looked like a tiger on Saturday night, but on Sunday she still hadn’t exactly made up her mind, and arrived on our doorstep as a fairy kitty.

The potluck gang, including Barrett the Stegasaurus (I wish I had a good picture of his awesome costume to show you), helped us demolish this Halloween haunted gingerbread house on Saturday night. I can’t believe this was the first time I tried making a gingerbread house before. So much fun to make & decorate!

All set and ready to go on Halloween night. Rex stayed home this year to hand out candy, while I took Aurora to about 20 houses for her tricks and treats. Every house we stopped at had at least six stairs, sometimes a lot more, but she tromped up and down them slowly and carefully, never letting go of my hand. This year she had finally gotten the hang of the script (”Trick or treat!” “Thank you!” “Happy Halloween!”), with only a small amount of prompting. Her little voice sing-songing sweetly at each door was one of the cutest things I’ve ever heard. This is definitely why people have kids.

Rex shows that his species of dinosaur only had two claws on each hand. “Rrraaargh! Did I scare you?”

Aurora looks over her booty at the end of the evening. Awesome bag she made, eh? Oh, and as she looks at how much candy she got, she says, “This is a lot. We should save some of this candy to give to the kids next year.”

Yeah, right, that’s what we’ll do with the “extra” candy.