Happy Halloween!

Halloween is full of treats...we had fun with food today:

Green eggs for breakfast (and we did have ham too, in the form of bacon, though not green):

PB & Jack O'Lantern (honey) sandwiches:

And of course dinner was the pinnacle event, with mummy dogs:

Witches' fingers (thank you Laura & Great Harvest):

Salty Bones:

And Bug Brew:

After dinner, we scurried into our costumes and over to the park for the ward Trunk-or-Treat...here with neighborhood friends Nathan & Brandon:

Mama & the boys...I know they're not the most impressive costumes ever but the boys were happy and cared more about the candy than anything else. Benno's a dog, Anthony is Obi-Wan (again...last year's costume...last minute decision--he was going to be a king, little stinker!) Christopher is a dragon (which actually is a really cute little costume but you wouldn't know it from this pic) and Aaron is a knight.

Our hauntingly festive door welcoming trick-or-treaters!

I think we'll all wake up with tummy-aches tomorrow. I only ate a couple little pieces (unusual for me...usually I'm digging into it alongside the boys) and I don't feel so good myself... Oh the joys of Halloween!

Yet another pumpkin patch!

We live in pumpkin land, so excuse the continual pumpkin patch posts. This one we really like, especially because so much of it is FREE! The hayride, hay pyramid & animal barn are all free... We came here with our good friends since we had the day off school. We ate a picnic lunch (see how Benno eats his PB&J below). Beautiful day and lots of fun as always.

My baby is 18 months!

I can hardly believe my baby boy is 18 months old today! He's not a baby anymore...he walks...he talks (well, in his own Benno way)...he plays...he feeds himself...he gets into mischief as only a little boy can...and he does it all while being one of the cutest little fellows in all the world (no bias there).

This is a big day as every LDS mother knows--he is officially nursery age, WOO-HOO!!!

WE LOVE YOU BENNO!!!

Carvin'

As has become the tradition in our cul-de-sac, there's a big carving party sometime in the week leading up to Halloween--tonight was the big night! Since our nightly activities included a soccer practice and violin lessons, I had to help things along a little bit so I did the dirty work by gutting all the pumpkins while the boys were off at school. That went so well that I think I may just do that every year! I'm a lot faster and cleaner about it than they ever are. The party was great fun and we couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather.

Anthony & Aaron each had grand plans of their own so I let them have at it...I took over for Christopher & Benno.

Christopher loves the finished product.

Benno is unhappy about his. (Wonder where the inspiration for his lovely jack-o-lantern design came from???)  He has had a rough couple of days...poor guy's been sick and he was woken up from his nap just before this.

Anthony's marvelous design. Wish him luck at tomorrow night's big Pack Meeting pumpkin competition.

Aaron & ONE of his faces...he put two faces on his.

Boys are way excited for Halloween!

You may notice that George & I are missing jack-o-lanterns. We have 2 gutted pumpkins awaiting our carving creativity since we were too busy running kids around to get ours done... I thought about doing an "O-BOO-ma" pumpkin but decided that was inviting trouble, so back to the drawing board.

Fill it up, please!

A funny thing happened on the way to the gas station today...I couldn't believe my eyes--the price at the pump has dropped like a dollar (at least it feels like that much) since I last filled up (which I try not to do too often anymore)! So shock #1...

Shock #2, also a funny thing... So I pull up at the pump, roll down my window (because here in the nanny state of Oregon, we still have full service gas stations...no such thing as self serve here) and as I'm about to open my mouth to happily say, "Fill 'er up!" the attendant says, "I'm sorry, ma'am. I can't sell you any gas. You have a McCain sticker on your van." I sat there incredulous for a moment (and sizing up the attendant--he's an interesting fellow with a shaved head, a groomed beard, earrings, eyebrow-rings, nosering, tattoos up and down both arms--I wouldn't have been surprised if he was an Obama supporter and 9 out of 10 people around here (it seems) are anyway) and he says, "I'm only messing with you--that's AWESOME! Don't see many McCain stickers around here!" MADE MY DAY, HA! He finishes filling the tank and hands me the receipt saying he loves my NObama sticker and says, "I'm gonna have to find me one of those!"

Hooray for right-thinkin' gas station attendants. I'll look at those guys a little differently now.


Boy, my car windows sure look nasty...look at all that pollen! Yuck.
And here are my lawn signs proudly displayed in my yard. I'm takin' a stand in blue Oregon!

Happier subjects

The little boys & I took advantage of the beautiful day yesterday to visit another favorite pumpkin patch--Lakeview Farms, which features both a train and a boat, which are always a hit with my little boys. It took a little while for Benno to decide it was fun and I think Christopher doesn't quite know what to do with himself when the older 2 are not around to be silly with him, but we did have fun. (I miss the days when Anthony & Aaron were these ages...we really had SO much fun and everything we did was such a big adventure...just a different dynamic now.) I got some fun shots. And I was seriously tempted by those bunnies for sale. I miss my BEEBS.