Halloween In More Than One Day

Halloween seems to be one of those holidays that comes and goes with little to no preparation and very little anticipation. Last year Tyler didn't "get" the whole Halloween thing, so basically the day came, we shoved him in is costume (with him crying the whole time) and then went trick-or-treating for a little while and it was over.

This year, however...

Halloween lasted a lot longer than a few hours. It started out with decorating our house. We put up cobwebs and spiders and window clings and bats and ghosts and pumpkins.

Then, we bought a costume after *careful* consideration. That means for weeks we asked Tyler "do you want to be a __________ for Halloween?" to which the answer every time was No thank you. Finally I sat him down in front of the computer on a Halloween website with upwards of 250 different toddler sized costumes and we went through picture by picture. Want to be that? No. Want to be that? No. Finally he settled on this:
A Knight!! People kept mistaking him for a king, to which he would reply "NO...I'm just a knight!"

Then came Halloween Mommy & Me at Rockville Town Square. Despite past Mommy & Me events where the first thing we HAD to do was stand in the Balloon Animal line, he wanted nothing to do with it this time. All he wanted was to be able to hold his Pumpkin bucket and go trick-or-treating from store to store.

His bucket got pretty heavy.

We also made Pumpkin cookies (to be shown in detail during P Week festivities) and decorated them. I made a mental note to remember that the sugar cookie recipe did not make nearly enough cookies.

We went picking pumpkins at Phillip's Farm. It's a nice little farm by my inlaws house that is actually closing down permanently as of October 31st. The lady that runs it is battling cancer for the second time. It's sad. We saw WTOP at the farm when we went interviewing the owner.

We also went to Trunk or Treat. We ended up going to my parents ward so Tyler could be with his cousins. They had a spook alley set up by the young women, and then trunk or treat in the parking lot. Besides the person giving out brownies, it was a success.

On Halloween day we went to a spook dinner at my inlaws, put on by my sister in law. You got a menu with items like eye of newt, or witches hearts, or casket wrap, and you ordered them in three courses. You didn't know what you were getting and my fork ended up coming in course 2 instead of course 1. I had to eat ice cream by licking it off my plate. It was a lot of fun.

Then we carved pumpkins. Tyler picked out a funny fat one that leaned back.

He wouldn't touch the guts.

But Daddy would...

When it was all cleaned off and it came time to actually carve it, Tyler wanted to draw his own face on with the marker. So I let him draw away and then I carved it with a knife. This is what he ended up with:

He was a very proud boy with a very cute pumpkin.

Lastly, we went back to our neighorhood to go trick-or-treating. Because it was raining at first, and because I anticipated carrying a boy or a bucket at some point, I didn't get any pictures. We stayed out for two and a half hours and Tyler walked by himself for two hours and 15 minutes of that. I was very proud of him. Daddy stayed home to pass out candy. All our candy ran out, but this is what we ended up with after Tyler's long escapade through the neighborhood:

It was a fun holiday and we will be eating candy for months.

Busy As A Bee

First off, I have been so busy I can't even stand to be on the computer for longer than I have to - thus no blogging. I have been spending 6-8 hours a day working on our freelance company and trying to get some extra money so someday I can buy a new car.

When I am not busy neglecting my child by putting him in front of the television while I try and work, we have been doing some fun things here and there.

N Week activities and crafts were few and far between, but we did learn a little bit...

We made No Bake Cookies. Tyler enjoyed crushing the graham crackers for the crust. Then he took some of the crumbs, some chocolate chips, coconut, and butterscotch chips and put them in a bowl and called them his "cereal." MAN if only MY mom had let me eat cereal like that as a kid, then maybe I would have liked it.

We also had noodles for dinner. Noodles as in Shrimp Lo Mein. Straight from the freezer, where all the ingredients were conveniently included in the bag and the only thing I had to provide is a pan and a microwave. And actually, it wasn't half bad.

We made Night scenes, using chalk and black paper. This activity could be used for M week as well, cause it was a MESS. Good thing chalk cleans up easily.

We watched the Natural. Naturally, Tyler was only interested in the parts where they were actually playing baseball, not the in between love story and political plot.

And, of course, we read books that started with N. I highly recommend No Jumping on the Bed. It was a funny one.

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We also had O Week. Because O comes after N. Do you realize how many things DON'T start with O??

We made Open Faced Reuben Sandwiches and Onion Rings. MMMMM I love a good Reuben Sandwich.

We also made Octopi. (Is that how you spell it?) Tyler insisted that my Octopus looked like a spider and he wanted nothing to do with making one. He made his own version instead with four triangle legs. Who am I to argue with a two year old who wants triangles for his Octopus's legs?

We read O books also. Out of all of them, I only really liked Olivia Forms A Band. Orson Blasts Off was ok, but the others were horrible. That's what I get for randomly choosing books that start with my letter of the week.

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Tyler also had a friend over one day to help him make cookies. Haley is one of the teenagers at the dance studio and she is there on Wednesday mornings during Tyler's gymnastics class. He saw her a couple of times this summer and took to her quickly.

Tyler asked her to come appen pickle (apple picking) with us a while back and she couldn't come, so she came over to bake instead. They made chocolate chip cookies...and a mess...and then colored Halloween Pictures together.

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Also, between our letter weeks, we had some weekend fun.

We went with Josh's side of the family to the Clarksburg Pumpkin Festival. It's a free festival they have in our neighborhood where you can carve pumpkins and play games and stuff, and then they light them up at dark. All proceeds go to charity.

Tyler had fun carving his pumpkin with Grandpa, who actually let him hold the knife. Brave man. They did a great job.

Tyler loved the tractor with all the pumpkin pieces in it. Every once in a while they would drive the pieces over and dump them in a big garbage bin.

He also LOVEd the baseball set up. He tried the batting cages but had a hard time with people pitching to him. But he loved throwing the ball at the baseball inflatable.

He didn't participate in the potato sack race, but had a fun time watching his cousins and uncle give it a go. It was also highly amusing for adults as well...

Josh enjoyed the baseball stuff as well.

There was also mini golf.

A hay maze that some crazy kids turned into a playground instead. Mine was not one of the crazy kids. He just didn't see any reason NOT to enjoy it after they already messed it up.

There was cow milking. Surprisingly Tyler was intrigued. I thought he would be disgusted by it, but no. Maybe he will be a farmer someday. A rich retired professional baseball player farmer. (Just go with it...)

Despite all the fun stuff at the Festival, I think Tyler's favorite part was the walk home.

It's fun to have family around.

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Lastly, we spent Columbus Day in Baltimore enjoying the Aquarium. The weather was a little chilly, but it wasn't too crowded since everyone had school despite the government holiday.

Tyler enjoyed the giant cannons on display at the harbor. He just re-discovered his pirate ship toy from Christmas and I taught him all about cannons, so he was extremely pleased to see a full sized one in real life, even if it wasn't fully functioning.

Tyler really liked the giant bubble tubes in the main lobby of the aquarium. After some old lady told him to put his ear to the tank, he had a lot more fun listening to the bubbles as well.

The new display is a jellyfish one. It's ironic that these beautiful creatures are SO poisonous and deadly. I will never look at another one the same again after watching Seven Pounds, btw.

Tyler's favorite part, by far, was the dolphin show. He came home and told everyone about it and how the dolphin "jump up and touch the tiny ball with his nose and he wave to me and splash people and jump in the air and spin under the water." Even though it's nothing compared to Sea World, Josh and I enjoyed the Dolphin Show as well.

Lastly, as we were getting ready to go, I asked Tyler to smile for the camera, and I got this instead:

SQUIRT SQUIRT!!

And right in front of Hooters, none the less.

Boys will be boys.