Freakishly large amount of Halloween pictures!

This is a fun year for Halloween for us. The boys are both old enough to dress up and enjoy the festivities, but are still young enough to be completely overtaken by the whole thing. We've made sure they have been able to experience all that Halloween has to offer - except the haunted houses. Those come later. (Something to look forward to!) I remember always loving Halloween as a child, not because I got candy, but because of the costumes and dramatics, and the fun of spooky stories and songs, games, carnivals, trick-or-treating... everything! I really want my boys to be able to enjoy it just as much.

All month, we've been reading Halloween books and listening to Halloween kids songs. We started this weekend off with Scary-Face Pancakes at IHOP. The boys loved these, they were fun and delicious! Ethan especially loved it, being the resident food connoisseur.

A small moment of concentration to take in all that is involved with these pancakes. Whipped cream, cookies, candy corn... oh my!

The face of absolute happiness...

Digging in with two utensils...

After that, we headed over to the MAC center for their carnival. They had games, crafts and candy. Ethan loved all the decorations, but kept a little space between him and the blow up stuff.

Aden was a whiz at the games. I was pretty proud at how well he did.

Digging for pirates treasure...

Hilarious story of the night - as we were driving to the carnival, Aden said, "I can't wait! I know they'll have golf!" Adam and I laughed that only our son would think "golf" when he thought of going to a Halloween carnival, and started wondering if we shouldn't just drive over to Putt Putt instead.

Imagine our surprise when we turned a corner to find... GOLF!

Aden said, "See? I told you." Little stinker.

Ethan loved the whole thing, but didn't want to be put down to play games. I think he was completely overwhelmed and wanted to look at everything - but safely from daddy's arms.

We managed to get him down just once for the pumpkin pond, and then not again until we got to the craft tables.

At the craft tables, Ethan made a little hanging art piece. Aden wasn't very interested in crafts at the carnival. He was still looking for games.

Back at home, Ethan was still on a sugar high and chatting nonstop about the night. He was giving me some great "CHEESE" smiles, so I got a couple more pictures before bedtime.

Saturday, Aden and the rest of the Wildcats had a game. Aden played great! He was on the defensive line most of the time, but didn't hesitate to get in there and get the ball. He had a couple really great plays and I think he's showing the 5 and 6 year olds that 4 year olds have mad skills too.

Then after a little rest, we headed over to the City of Mansfield Halloween Festival. Guess what Aden made a beeline to...

Ethan's hands-down favorite part of the entire festival were two puppet shows that we were able to catch. This boy loves puppets. I think I know what to tell Santa to bring. Santa - are you reading this? Puppets.

Here he is pointing to the puppets. I actually have three pictures of him pointing because he was so enthralled in the show he just stood there pointing.

More games for Aden...

The Mansfield Firemen were there too, and they were letting the kids crawl into the fire truck and check it out. Aden feels right at home in a fire truck.

Ethan was having a hard time not breaking down during a few times waiting in lines for games. The only thing that kept him calm and happy were suckers. When he had a sucker, he was Mr. Go With The Flow. I think we may have found a secret weapon against public tantrums.

They had a fun little petting zoo there too. Aden was ALL about this, and actually spent most of his time feeding a rabbit. He kept yelling out to all the other kids, "Hey guys! Look! It's a rabbit over here!"

Ethan just walked around with wide eyes taking in all the fuzzy things.

Aden and the rabbit... the goat had to check this out too, since Aden made it sound so cool.

Next was a little wagon ride and then an awesome puppet show, which we got front row seats for. The songs were so catchy that Aden and I were singing them the rest of the night. And Ethan was humming along with us.

I think Aden and Ethan might love Halloween as much as I did when I was a kid.

Mystery Solved

Ethan went to the doctor today - poor booger has strep throat. Not too long ago he had pneumonia. He just can't catch a break! He's a real trooper though, still smiling and playing and hugging and being his sweet little self. And Aden hasn't caught it, despite being tagged, hugged, drooled on, tickled, tackled and petted by Ethan. He's such a great brother - most of the time.

"CHEESE!"

Ethan figured out this week that when a camera comes out, you smile and say "cheese!" It is the cutest thing. And thankfully for me, a person who likes taking photos, he wants to do this a lot now. We're staying in this morning just Ethan and I since he's not feeling that great, and he happened to sit up on the fireplace with the pumpkin, so I grabbed the camera. I was not expecting so many smiles and "cheeses!"

Then at one point, "CHEESE" turned into "TEETH" and so he showed those to me too.

First run with the costumes

It's the weekend before Halloween and carnivals are everywhere. We are definitely getting good use out of Aden's $5 costume. Friday night was the school carnival. Ethan started feeling poorly, so Adam stayed home with him and I took Aden up to the school. He had a blast going from room to room and playing the games. He wasn't sure at all about the cake walk, but I finally got him to do it with me and he started getting into it. We must have walked 14 times before I finally won a cupcake, which I of course gave to my cute little transformer.

Aden and his friend Noah, comparing costumes

Picking out a cupcake - an orange one with a ghost on top.

Walking back to the car on a very nice evening.

The next day, Ethan was still feeling terrible so I stayed home with him while Adam took Aden to his soccer game. Due to an injury, Aden ended up playing all 4 quarters. It stormed most of the day, so we weren't sure we were going to get out of the house but after the rain stopped we decided to get out of the house and meet up with our friends Courtney and Jason for some trunk-r-treating. Ethan's fever had broken and he seemed to feel fine, so we thought an hour or two out of the house might do him some good. He was sleepy though, so although he had fun, an hour or two was all he was good for.

Due to the rain, the trunk-r-treating was moved into the church - which lost power shortly before it began. The kids had fun anyway!

Tomorrow, provided Ethan feels a little better, we have another trunk-r-treat event at Gigi's church. Again - we are getting some use out of that costume!

More on soccer - three days a week

Aden is still playing soccer; a game on Saturdays and practice Mondays and Wednesdays. He's getting pretty good! He's still a little slow at running compared to the other (two years older) boys, but honestly if he really ran as fast as he could I personally think he would be faster than some of them. The problem is that during the game, he just sort of "fast walks" and then when they call for a water break he runs like the wind over to the water bottle. It's very difficult to get this child to put any kind of motivation into anything that he doesn't want to do. And unfortunately he's very rarely motivated. I feel like I am looking straight into the crystal ball of Aden's future right through to his teenaged years.

The photo above though is Aden asking the coach if he can be a goalie. And Coach very nicely changing the subject.

Ethan is a huge fan...

He's at all the games cheering on the sidelines. He's happy to stay off the field as long as there's snacking involved. As soon as the snack offerings end though, he's back to trying to run out on the field.

Sometimes we can side track him with things like wagons and shiny things.

He really is his brother's biggest fan though.

After mommy that is.

This is Aden's highly intimidating defensive stance. Watch out opponents, Aden's defending the goal! (You just can't teach this kind of talent).

More snacking means more sitting. Go Wildcats!