How to Know If you Should Skip Your Neighborhood When Trick Or Treating

I think in most neighborhoods there's one neighbor that lives to the beat of their own drum. Who lives outside of the pressure to keep their lawn perfectly manicured, and embodies the character "Pig Pen" in the general upkeep and appearance of their home, and general lifestyle. 

Well, in OUR neighborhood, WE'RE the ones. 

There are 7 houses on our block, and all of them have their lawn mowed by a certain "yardman" in a little rickety truck. He does every house on our block, except ours, and it's obvious.

So there's that. 

And there's Elisabeth.

Elisabeth is the incarnation of what it would look like if God used this recipe to make a person: a field full of wild flowers, aurora borealis, an awesome piece of music that you can't help dancing to, and a mischievous little puppy. 

Elisabeth picks our neighbors unripe fruit and flowers, climbs their trees and plays in their yards uninvited and unaccompanied. She leaves her toys in their yards so it looks like they have messy kids (none of them have kids...messy or otherwise), which totally ruins the look of their perfectly manicured lawn.

And she just got a bike. So all of this will be done at higher volume and frequency. 

She does all of this with a song on her lips, dance steps instead foot steps, in her princess dress of choice for the day and the make up look she chose and applied using permanent markers (that won't come off for at least a week!).

I DO try to keep a handle on her...but she's fast...and quiet. And I have a bazillion OTHER kids to distract me! Seriously, if NASA needs some help with their stealth research...Elisabeth is an expert.

So trick or treating in our neighborhood is kind of tricky. I'm kind of afraid the candy will be laced with Ritalin or something. 

Not really...we just encourage Elisabeth to choose a full body costume wherein she is unrecognizable.

:) I'm kidding about the costumes and ritalin. 

Her sweet little freckle face is the absolute cutest! And I love her so much. She makes our life more interesting and I wouldn't trade her for any other, less active and less imaginative little girl. 

                                                    Photo courtesy of Alisha Hurt Photography
And who knows?! I said that I would be open to anything and everything that God has for me. Maybe He's using Elisabeth to prepare me for a career in the circus.