Many Happy (More or Less) Halloweens

Halloween... the time of year when I can give up, put my gardening gloves away, and just go buy some pumpkins!

I know what you're thinking. Magazine photo? No. My front porch. You can tell by the filthy sidelight windows, the shaggy (but very loved) dog, and the almost rotten black pumpkins. But I do always get excited about hanging my spider webs (an idea I shamelessly stole from Becky Driggs)! All you need to create your own is a yard stick, a box of white chalk, sharp scissors, about five or six white paint pens, an inherent spatial sense, several hours on your hands and knees, the restraint to not swear too badly in front of small children, and a few screen rolls. I only need to hang these for 94 more years to feel that doing all that work was justified.

You can't tell where the pumpkins are caving in because I rotated the bottom one to hide it. Also, when it comes to Photoshop? I'm pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Happy Halloween and Everything Else, Too!

Ben and his class went trick-or-treating together at school. He doesn't know or care about candy (which I plan to support forever since brushing his teeth is akin to kangaroo wrestling), but he clearly enjoyed being my tour guide!

We gathered with neighborhood friends to play and eat before everything got too sweet!

Seeing my kids so happy together is always a treat, but seeing Ben smile while sitting in this spot while dressed in costume is a almost a miracle, like when Mary Lou Retton won all those gold medals or when I won the stock contest in Dr. Baldwin's Financial Management class. (Buy and hold, people, buy and hold.)

This year made me feel especially nostalgic for our first Halloween as a little family of three. John was only seven weeks old, and I was still just getting the hang of our days together.

Our Little Pumpkin, 2003

He is still my little pumpkin today!

2004, the year that brought big changes: new home, new city, new state! We loved living in Brier Creek and still talk about what wonderful, carefree days those were. John was still a little young to go out, but he was great for charming all of our neighbors who stopped by for treats! (And it was so nice to live in a place where the chances of being able to go sock-free on Halloween night were pretty fair!)

2005

We were heavily influenced by Pixar back then. He refused to wear anything on his head or face, but I still thought he was a perfect Buzz. This is one of my favorite pictures ever (except for his hair, which had just been shorn like he was a sheep during a wool shortage. Landy.) We moved back home to Kentucky just a few days after this.

2006

Home in Kentucky again, this was John as Woody at three years old. Took some serious doing (bribery, manipulation, subliminal messages) to convince him to wear a hat at all.

Back then, he could name all the states in alphabetical order, list all the Presidents of the United States in order, and pick out Pete Rose on a poster of the Big Red Machine. In fact, he just had incredible teachers in his Christ Church School 3 year old class. (Can I get an "Amen" for Mrs. Hopmann and Mrs. Booker?) I once asked him to point to the worst president on a poster that had all of their pictures, and he stuck his finger right on Jimmy Carter (bless his heart). Some of my friends would have disagreed with little John, but his genius would likely have been lauded by some former hostages. I just smiled and asked him who the best president was. He said, "You are, Mommy." Maybe he *is* a genius?

Anyway, don't ask him to give you either list today! He's far too focused on sports to bother with things like history and geography. But he can certainly find Pete Rose in a crowd.

We boomeranged back to NC just before his next Halloween:

2007

Allowing your child to sleep with a sugary lollipop in his mouth is just good, common sense parenting.

2008

But if you do it too often, his teeth will end up looking like this. This year, John was Bumblebee (with glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth?), but it's a little hard to tell in this picture. He loved Transformers for about five minutes.

2009

And then he moved on to a ten minute Star Wars obsession. Obi-John Kenobi.

2010

And finally, this year, he was Troy Polamalu. Football is the obsession that I think is going to stick!

Ben

2007

Well, he was certainly SuperBen, but as I've stated before, this was a very difficult time for us. Ben was nearly six months old here, and we were heavily in the denial/confusion/worry stage.

2008

Does this costume look familiar? I wonder if Ben was upset that I dressed him in a hand-me-down costume.

2009

While times had certainly gotten better for our family since his first Halloween, Ben clearly still was heavily in the denial/confusion/worry stage of costuming.

2010

But just look at what a difference a year makes!

Ben as Plex the Magic Robot, following his brother's No Headgear policy.

What was missing this year? Just a few of our favorite people. We missed you, Jackson and Luke!

2008

2009