The Koetter's: Halloween

Anyone who knows Lyla, knows that she loves all things Barney, or "eye-ee" as she says. So of course for Halloween, she had to be Barney. Yes, we could have done Baby Bop (the girl dinosaur with the pink ballet slippers and pink bow) but her love for "Bop" just is not quite as strong as it is for Barney.

Now just in case you are wondering, toddlers of today are just not that in to Barney. He is what you would call "retired". They don't play Barney on tv, and besides a "knock-off" Barney stuffed doll, that is not even cute, with a heart in the middle of his body that plays music, they don't even sell Barney in stores anymore. Of course my child would choose to obsess over the hard to find character. One time I was checking out of Target and I was buying a Barney DVD that I had found, and the girl at the check- out said "They still make Barney? I did not even know kids still liked him." I told her it was rare to find Barney anything and that when I did, I bought it. E-Bay has become my best friend when is comes to all things Barney. Yes, we are having a Barney birthday for her 2nd birthday and pretty much everything has come from e-bay.

My parents kept their old VHS tapes of Barney from when my sister was little. Those things are vintage!! It is kinda funny to see how Barney has evolved over the years. Yes, my parents also still have a VHS player as well. Thank goodness for Netflix. They have hundreds of Barney movies and you could say we pay for a Netflix subscription just for Barney. Hey, whatever works!

Anyways, I found a Barney costume on e-bay that I just knew Lyla would obsess over. As soon as it came, we opened it and she wanted to put it on right away. It came a couple weeks before Halloween, and we definitely had a little Barney running around our house for the month of October. She was too cute in it! It was perfect because it was so warm, that even if the night of Halloween was freezing cold, she would not need to wear a jacket and cover up her costume.

We had just moved into our new house, and our neighborhood threw a Halloween party before the kids went trick-or-treating. It was such a fun way to meet people and get to know some of the kids in the neighborhood. We went up to the cul-de-sac after Adam got home and ate some dinner, met some neighbors, and they had fun games for the kids. All the activities they had, Lyla was right in the middle wanting to be a part of. It was fun to watch her with the other kids. They had a pinata, and you better believe Lyla was up there swinging the bat to try and break it. As it started getting dark, we decided to go ahead and start trick-or-treating, so that we could still get Lyla to bed at a decent hour. Adam went home so he could hand out candy to anyone that came to our house and I took Lyla. I did not know if she would understand the whole trick-or-treating thing, if she would get tired of walking or what. That girl LOVED EVERY MINUTE!! I loved watching her. We went with our neighbors who live across the street and once we went to a couple of houses, she totally got in to it. After every house, she would point to the next house and say "house". She did not want to go home, she did not get tired and she loved all the treats she got. I kept asking her if she was ready to go home and she would say no and point to the next house. She was totally bummed when got home. She would have kept going. So fun! And like any other kid as soon as we got home, she wanted to check out and eat her candy. We let her pick out one piece to eat before going to bed. It was a fun night with our little Barney!