Farewell Fall

I'm wrapping up the Fall season with some of our favorite fall memories, including pumpkin carving, the pumpkin patch, and trick or treating!

Trick or Treating!

We usually go to El Paso for Halloween, but a friend told me that my very own neighborhood was apparrently the place to be, so we decided to do our Halloween get-together at our house, and sure enough, by 9am on Halloween morning, neighbors were outside decorating and setting up their front yards and porches, just as my friend had promised. We were so amazed and excited by it all that we rushed to the store to get some of our own festive decor and 10 more bags of candy (plus we didn't want to seem like the Halloween scrooges of the neighborhood - not a good reputation to have!). Sam set up and decorated the driveway, complete with spooky music playing in the background. And while Nana and the Papa's stayed at the house handing out candy, Woody, Buzz, and Jessie excitedly set out for an evening of trick-or-treating! It turned out to be such a fun time for the kids and us! Jaden, Elijah, and Cousin Aubrey are all at a wonderful age where the sights and sounds of Halloween are not toooo scary for them - Jaden was terrified last year, but was great about it all this year and Elijah and Aubrey were unphased by all of the "spookiness." And these three characters were quite the little show stoppers everywhere that we went (and didn't mind all the attention one bit!).

Pumpkin Carving!

Carving pumpkins and roasting pumpkin seeds is always one of my favorite fall activities to do with the kids. Neither of the boys were too willing to dig in and scoop out the pulp and seeds (and actually, it took me becoming a preschool teacher to even be willing to do that myself); but they were very good supervisors and observers.

The Pumpkin Patch!

We are very fortunate to have a wonderful corn maze/pumpkin patch right down the road from us and it seems to have more and more activiteis for the kids every year (that or the kids are finally getting big enough to do the activities that they've had there every year...hmm). Either way it's always a wonderful time had by all, and one of our true indicators that the boys are in fact getting taller every year (see pictures)

And of all the big, orange, perfectly round pumpkins in the pumpkin patch, these are the two that Jaden chose because, in his words, they were "beautiful" and "perfect."

Sam jokingly said that Jaden definitely will not be picking out the family dog that we adopt, if ever we adopt a dog. Haha. But isn't it wonderful how innocent and non-judgmental kids can be. I love it.

Hope you all had a Happy Fall!

Spiderman and a Baby Bat (and Darth Vader, Too)!

Sam, Elijah, and Jaden all dressed up for a Halloween carnival.

Sam, Elijah, Jaden, my niece Aubrey, my brother-in-law Beto, and my sister Angela.

That's one precious baby bat!

And an adorable Spiderman!

My precious niece Aubrey and her daddy.

Jaden got his face painted.....don't ask!

Jaden was so excited to go on the slide, and then sat up there for about 10 minutes before finally going down. He loved it!

There were so many fun games to play (and of course, lots of candy to be eaten).

Elijah was exhausted at the end of the day...

and Jaden was on a sugar high!!

Halloween Costume Dilema(s)!

Jaden was super excited about Halloween this year! Even though he does not like to be within 10 feet of anything in a costume, he was super excited to wear one. And in years past, I was able to pick out a cute, fluffy, soft, cuddly costume for him to wear (Nemo his first year, and Goofy last year). But I knew that would not work this year. I knew that if he didn't get to pick out his own costume, there would a 99% chance of him flat out refusing to wear the costume of my choice. So we looked through a Halloween costume magazine together, trying to get an idea of what he'd like to be. We got to the page with superhero costumes, he had his mind made up! He was going to be Superman... or Batman... or maybe Flash.... or Captain America. He couldn't pick which one, but he definitely knew he would be a superhero. He hurried to the kitchen for a dish towel to use as a cape, and that was just the beginning of his superhero-ness... He continued to looked through the magazine several times a day just to look at the page with the superhero costumes.

But since Jaden couldn't decide which superhero he wanted to be, I decided to sell him on Spiderman because, naturally, I wanted him and Elijah to coordniate, and for Elijah's first Halloween, I could pick him out something cute, fluffy, soft, and cuddly! And I had seen the most adorable spider costume in the magazine, which would go perfect with Jaden's Spiderman costume!

When I finally got around to ordering the costume for Jaden, apparrently it was too late and every other child who was the same size as Jaden was going to be wearing that toddler muscle Spiderman costume for Halloween this year because it was sold out everyhere - and I mean EVERYWHERE! I am a born researcher, so I searched and searched over 100 websites for that costume and every single one said "sold out" or "currently unavailable" (except for those few that had it and were trying to sell it for a cheap $500 to those desperate parents like me)! But I didn't want it that bad, well actually I did, but it wouldn't have shipped on time (haha, not really! There is no way! No matter how much I love my Jaden!). But I was super bummed because Jaden wanted to be Spiderman so bad! And now what would Elijah be if Jaden were Captain America? - a flag?? How about Flash? - a lightning bolt?? See what I mean, not exactly the cute, fluffy, soft, and cuddly I had in mind.

So then I got to thinking that a baby bat wouldn't be too bad, if I could find the right costume. And Jaden could be Batman (as long as it had a cape, I was sure he'd be happy). So I started my research again and found an adorable baby bat costume and a coordinating toddler muscle Batman costume. Perfecto! I placed my order and was so excited about the new costumes! And within two days, Elijah's baby bat costume had arrived - a little big, but adorable (for a bat, anyway). Over the next few days, I waited... and waited... and waited for the Batman costume to arrive...but it never did. It started to be cutting it close to Halloween, and I was getting worried, so I checked the status of my order, and low and behold, I had an email notification letting me know that the order was cancelled because the costume became unavailable! WHAT!! I couldn't believe it! (I immediately sent an email notification back to the company expressing my dissatisfaction regarding their lack of effort to notify me sooner)!

Now back to square one :(. So a few nights before Halloween, I was driving all over town trying to find a Batman costume (or something -- really anything at this point), while my mom and sister were driving all over El Paso doing the same thing. None of us could find a Batman costume anywhere. How about a firefighter and Elijah could be a dalmation? Super cute, but I just kept thinking of how much Jaden was looking forward to being a superhero and how I had let him down by not ordering the costume sooner!

So I decided to ask around to see if any friends happened to have a Spiderman or Batman costume, but no luck. Then my sister called me and let me know that one of her co-workers had a black muscle Spiderman costume in Jaden's size that he could wear! Score!! I knew he'd love it! The only problem was he would be Spiderman, while Elijah was a baby bat. So much for my coordinating plan - but actually, they were both black, so there! Perfectly coordinated!

Pumpkin/Halloween Pictures

I realized that I have yet to post our pumpkin and Halloween pictures! I temporarily lost my camera, which has all of those pictures on it! But my mom found it at her house, so as soon as I get it, those pictures will be up!
* Just thought you may be wondering :o)