Post (Halloween) Weekend

October is one of those photo-heavy months that sneak up on you.  (Also see March and/or April (yay it's spring and we're outside again and also Easter is in there somewhere!) and any month with a kid's birthday in it (February.  Just February.  All the pictures for us are in February.).)  I mean, you kind of expect it in December what with the holidays and all, but October is a month full of fall things - leaf jumping!  hayrides!  pumpkin patches and apple orchards! - plus all that costume-wearing business.  Midwestern Octobers are like walking into a ready-made photo shoot each and every day.

Lucky for October, I really like fall.  Bring on the pumpkins and costumes, please.

 

Pumpkins for us this year meant pumpkin painting.  Carving pumpkins with things like sharp knives and messy pumpkin goo and all that sort of stuff with two toddlers + a baby around didn't appeal to me.  (GEE, why not?!?)  

But paint + toddlers + pumpkins?  Oh yes.  Bring it on.

And they LOVED it.

(Clearly a masterpiece.)

(Serious Caden is serious.)

(Teamwork!)

Though it fairly quickly devolved into a body-painting session.

Which they may have loved even MORE.

Pumpkins ready for trick-or-treaters.

Candy ready for trick-or-treaters.

Kids ready to BE trick-or-treaters.

Nolan's face got more bewildered and desperate as the photo-taking went on...

...and...

...there we have it.  Someone seriously needs to make a GIF of those last three, though.  (Caden's face is just as priceless.)

Mario and Princess Peach don't like each other at all.

No, I did not ask them to stare off into the distance for effect.  Once they spied a tractor working on building a new house nearby, there was no going back.  Why would I look at YOU holding a CAMERA, mom?  I had about 348 variations of the above shot.

Oh, Toad.

It was a little bit better for you earlier in the day, without costumes and siblings and sheer shrieking CHAOS around. 

(Though, really, you should be used to that by now.)

Everyone had fun.  Besides maybe Nolan during the picture-taking.  Sorry, third kid.  The older two rushed out, fully enthusiastic trick-or-treaters who banded together with some of the neighbors to canvass the neighborhood.  (Though Caden was slightly confused and started filling up his bucket with candy from out OWN bowl before heading out.  WHY am I leaving the house to go get candy when there is so much RIGHT HERE?!?  Oh the things we put these toddlers through.  It's really quite confusing, actually.)

Mario was lured back home by a bucket mostly full of candy ("I eat it all gone!") after trekking half the neighborhood, leaving Princess Peach to soldier on with the group.  

A couple of Snickers and a Halloween episode of Daniel Tiger later, and the Princess arrived back home, too.

 And, FYI, two two-and-a-half year olds can bring in quite the haul.  They are also completely unaware of the existence of all that candy they worked so hard for once they go to bed.

Pictured above: reasons for having kids.

Happy November!

Post (Halloween) Weekend

Little Bo Peep...

has lost her sheep...

and doesn't know where to find him because he got way too into this whole Trick-or-Treating business.

(Leave him alone (with Daddy), and he'll come home, wagging his tail and dragging an impressive haul of candy behind him.)

(Seriously, his little tail wagged behind him while he walked.  It was freaking adorable.)

Really, they BOTH got into Halloween much more than I ever expected.  While Brooklyn lost interest after six houses or so, Caden continued on with Tyson to canvass the neighborhood.  In retrospect, I should have seen this coming, since it involved several of Caden's favorite things:

1. Pushing buttons (ringing doorbells).
2. Taking things out of containers (picking out his candy at each house).
3. And putting them in other containers (putting said candy in his own pumpkin).
4. Running (constantly, up and down the driveways and sidewalk to get to the next button-pushing and candy-filled destination).

Brooklyn was more in her element once we got home, changed into jammies, and handed out candy to the other trick-or-treaters.  While we went through almost all of our candy, I think that was due more to Little Bo Peep's generosity of handing out as much candy as she could fit in her little fist--4-6 pieces, every time--than to the actual volume of trick-or-treaters.  Caden was far more choosy when it was his turn to hand out the candy, carefully selecting a single piece from our bowl before dropping it into the waiting pumpkin or pillowcase.

 

 

Neither of them minded their costumes, either; Caden actually threw a fit when we took his off for the night.  Brooklyn was slightly more relieved, since that darn hoop skirt tripped her up approximately 983 times during the few hours it was on.

 

(Why won't Nana and Papa just let us in the freaking door?!?)

I'm not a big Halloween person (too overblown, too scary, too *ahem, in college* slutty), but it was an absolute blast this year.  Maybe because my expectations were so low that they easily surpassed them all, eagerly running from house to house for candy, looking far too adorable in their costumes, and snuggled up with us at the end of the night for some Halloween-themed TV, fun-sized chocolate bars and all.

Thanks for all the candy, kids.  :)

Thing One and Thing Two (aka First Halloween)

"'In this box are two things I will show to you now.  You will like these two things,' said the cat with a bow.  'I will pick up the hook.  You will see something new.  Two things, and I call them Thing One and Thing Two.'" 

Things don't get much cuter than that,

Though smaller, Thing Two was a bit rough, and kept trying to attack Thing One.

He didn't seem to mind too much, though.

Thing One doesn't even know what's coming...

Caden unmasked!  Or...un...wigged?  De-wigged?

Either way, Caden's head shrunk by three sizes that day.

Actually several times that day...

"Haha!  Look what I've got!"

Don't let their cuteness fool you.  These Things are just as mischievious as the ones in the book.

They did surprisingly well keeping their costumes on for most of the day (except when they were ripping each other's wigs off).  We started out the day in something equally festive, though not quite as outlandishly adorable.

The first Halloween is kind of weird to celebrate, since it's basically pointless to actually take them trick-or-treating for candy they can't eat (Though I'll admit that I considered it.  I mean, SOMEBODY would have had to eat all that sweet, sweet candy...), but you still want to dress them up because it's ridiculously cute.  So basically the saying "all dressed up but no place to go" is quite applicable here.  Like I said, they spent the better part of the day in their costumes just because (which was also one of the most hysterical things I have ever seen, to see these little blue-haired munchkins crawling, pulling themselves up, and playing all over the place), and I also took them to my old workplace to show them off.  Then in the evening we stopped by a friend's house for a while to hang out.  So, in the end, it actually turned out to be a pretty good day with Thing Two...

...and Thing One.

Oh, and this Third Guy Thing, too.