Adelina has been in love with Little Red Riding Hood lately — last week we were reading it every night — so I asked her if she wanted to be le Petit Chaperon Rouge for Halloween and of course, she thought it was the best idea ever!

We made a trip to our local Ace Hardware for some fabric (love our small-town Ace!) and voilà — we had a costume! I loved this especially because it’ll serve for years to come, she definitely has room to grow with it, and I took special care with details so it’ll be a great dress-up piece too. Here is the tutorial I based my design off of, with some modifications 🙂

We were going for a more classic French vintage vibe and I think it turned out so perfect. (Those are technically foxes on her dress, but they were gray and I think they totally worked as wolves!)

And then we have our little hunter. I had grand ideas of getting him a traditional French hunting cap, a cute jacket, maybe a horn or something, but really… he’s a baby and doesn’t care. So we just handed him an old-fashioned wooden pop gun and called it good! (side note: those things are super fun, they make a very satisfying pop noise, which I may have driven my husband insane with… ha!) He wasn’t feeling so hot lately so he’s just in some cute monster jammies and a cap. Done.

He still had the energy to be adorable and mischievous, of course.

And here’s the whole crew!

Andrew may have terrified a few little girls… oops! We reused an old werewolf mask from a dance show several years ago (Thriller-themed, obviously!) and that was that. And I figured if I had to be an old lady, I could at least be a classy Mamie. Ha!

We just did the downtown businesses trick or treat, it’s earlier in the day so it’s easier for little people, plus they have some pretty good stuff. Our bank serves up amazing hot apple cider… mmm… and the movie theater was handing out fresh buttery popcorn!

After making the rounds, we came home and had dinner, then handed out candy to trick-or-treaters (probably Adelina’s favorite activity of the day) under this gorgeous fall sunset.

And then we wrapped it all up with a monster green glow stick bath! Just throw some glow sticks in the tub and turn out the lights — so entertaining.

Side note: how do you handle the candy overload? We got some non-candy treats and little toys, but there’s still SO MUCH candy. I had her choose five pieces of candy to keep when we got home and put away the rest for later (AKA mom & dad tonight… ha!) but I’ve heard of kids turning in what’s left of their candy to the Halloween fairy in exchange for a toy or book. Kind of a cool idea, I think. How do you do it?

I have dreams of being the cool house someday that serves chili and soup and cider out of their garage for the parents to stop and hang out while the kids play. We had some friends that did that back in Casper and it was so awesome. Maybe next year!

Anyway, there you have it. Happy Halloween!