Look who we found wandering in our backyard - ELMO

Taylor was decked out in muppet fur and ready to go

The only problem was an empty bucket

Don't worry, she quickly figured out how to fix that problem - Nothing's better than candy from the King

The afternoon ended with a full bucket and an exhausted daughter

We started the afternoon up in Des Moines with her cousin Zach. The local businesses all hand out candy and Taylor was quite the trooper. She walked door to door (over 10 blocks) and quickly learned that she was supposed to reach in, take some candy out, and put it into her bucket. She can say trick-or-treat, but got gun shy around strangers. Who would have thought - she has no clue what candy is - but that didn't stop her from this joyful quest. The evening ended at a harvest party at my parent's church. Here the goal was to work yourself around the gym from carnival game to carnival game and the prize was always candy. The only problem is Taylor was now "trained" to recognize the bowl of candy and take a piece; she was not all that interested in "wasting time" by following a set of rules to earn the candy. This had to be my favorite part of the evening - seeing her wander around with obvious wonder and frustration as to why the candy had suddenly become more difficult to come by. Needless to say by the end of the night she was exhausted - not to mention well photographed!