Well, I'm a terrible planner. This is no surprise to anyone. Lack of planning causes a lot of heartburn around here. Halloween was no different. I was still feeding the boys dinner when the first trick or treaters starting ring the door bell. No one was dressed and I was stressed out to get a picture of these, the cutest boys:
I know everyone thinks their kids are the cutest, but really those hats are too much. Kevin's mom gets all the credit here. She made these costumes in a few days. I got the idea to have them dress like garden gnomes. (Kevin has called them his gnomies a few times.) I found a cute, $50 costume and couldn't swing the 100 bucks for Halloween. So what did I do? Plead to the mother in law. She really came through here, don't you think? Amazing talent. The hats were perfect, stayed hilariously pointy all night and the boys love them. Tonight (Sunday) Joshua found his hat and tried putting it on his head and came grunting toward me, pleading for help. I put the hat on him, said "Nice hat, Joshua" and signed the word for hat. He was so pleased, he walked around signing "hat" for like 15 minutes with a huge grin on his face. Every time we made eye contact, I complimented him again and he giggled and ran away.
Back to trick or treating. After a late start, we made our way over to my friend Natalie's house. She was having friends (and kids) over and we stopped at a few houses along the way to say Trick or Treat. Okay, it was two houses. We did more last year, but Caleb got some candy, and really, does he ever need more than one handful of the stuff? Below is a shot of Joshua's first go at it. After Caleb modeled correct form, little J walked right up to the lady with his bag, and stared into her face. She put some hideously big piece of chocolate in his hand and he just stood there. Caleb remembered to say thank you, but he was most concerned about finding his friend Ellie.
The night was a little jumbled. We ended up hanging out at Nat's house for the evening, and leaving a bowl of candy on our driveway. Next year I'll be more organized: Costumes before the sun sets so we can get good pictures, a sign for the candy if we are to leave it, one lap around the block, and then some time handing out candy. Caleb loved that part last year and I feel like I deprived him this year. It was really fun hanging out at Nat's though- all of our husbands were there, which is a rarity, indeed. Here are some pics of the friends, including baby Meadow as Elvis.
Jen with her Emmie, and Jodi with her
Peighton.
Caleb found a lollipop on the sidewalk yesterday and was concerned that it was Ellie's. I don't think he tried to eat it.
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On Saturday, while Kevin was attending the CrossFit Level 1 Certification course, I took a few family pictures of a beautiful couple, Stacy and Charles. The hardest part of taking their picture was making it not look like a catalog shot. They really are pretty people and the puppy, Scooby is a sweetie. One more of the funny pup's tongue.
While I was doing that, our friends David and Robin kept the boys for me. Unfortunately their heater has been broken for about a week. Of course Saturday was one of the coldest days yet this season. When I dropped off the boys it was like 42 outside and maybe 50 in their house. The boys didn't seem to mind too much though, and I am grateful for such caring friends.
Robin and David have a few egg-producing chickens in their backyard. Joshua chased them around roaring like a lion. The hens were not as amused as I was.
Caleb liked jumping in the leaves with Mr. David, although Mr. David has the habit of finding the line between fun and scary for little Caleb. 
