Knock Knock... trick or treat!

It's safe to say that this was our best Halloween yet.

This was the first year that Tommy really, really got it. Last year, he was still a YOUNG two and while he understood that he was getting candy at some houses, he was still content to hang back and was mostly still too shy to hold out his treat bag. This year? He was off and running with his brother.


At one house, he gleefully shouted KNOCK KNOCK as he ascended the steps, followed by TRICK OR TREAT. If you know Tommy, you know how shy he can be around people he doesn't know, so you'll know why we all looked at each other and burst into laughter at his excitement.

I didn't take very many photos because I was too busy watching them run from house to house and have fun. We trick-or-treated for an hour, which is probably our longest time. Tommy started to get tired toward the end and handed my dad his candy bag between houses with the warning, "But don't eat any of it, Papa."

Their excitement was probably sweeter than the Halloween candy that I stole from their pile after they went to bed.


I hope your Halloween was full of treats!

Hallo-Weekend

I have a love-hate relationship with fall. I think I discuss this every year, but I do. I would love this season so much more if it wasn't followed by winter. I hate winter. there is no love about winter. I hate snow. I hate cold. End of story. So, it's hard for me to really love fall because I know that winter comes next, but I still try. I like the changing leaves. I like the apple cider. I like Halloween. I like the weather in terms of running.
I don't like that I'm sitting inside my house right now and I can hear the wind screaming and I can feel how cold it is through the house. I do not like this. I should only feel cold in my house because it's July and I've turned up the air conditioning.

Still, I choose to live here, so I try to make the best of this season. We ended October with a lot of fun. Saturday morning, Luke and I were invited to a pumpkin decorating event at the Fairmont Chicago. I love carving pumpkins with the boys, but I hate the stress of knives around my kids, so this was a lot of fun for me. Although I helped Luke with a few things, it was fun to sit back and let him go wild with his pumpkin. I am ridiculously craft challenged, so the thought of giving him a box of craft supplies and a bottle of glue never occurred to me, but we'll be doing this with both boys and pumpkins next year.

We also got to sample pumpkin seeds (both savory and sweet) and pumpkin cookies prepared by the Fairmont chefs. Part of the love side of things that I have with this season is anything pumpkin flavored, so we're planning on recreating the cookies to share with our family on Halloween!

Luke left with a pumpkin carving kit, a bag full of candy and this very decorated pumpkin, which he made me carry back to the car. Of course. On the drive home, Luke said, "Mom, I had a great time at that party!"

A side note about Luke, he absolutely loves hotels. So even though we weren't staying there, all I had to do was tell him that it was in a hotel and he was already hooked. Ever since we stayed at the Swissotel this August, he's been asking if we could go back and stay overnight for his birthday in February (we usually let him choose an overnight at a water park in lieu of a big birthday party). After our short visit to the Fairmont, he's now considering this an option. Why? Because they have an escalator right off the main lobby. Something tells me this is not how most people choose hotels.

Sunday morning, we went hiking at our favorite local arboretum, which is all decorated for Halloween. The boys loved the additions to the train garden.

As well as the hay maze, which Tommy tried to cheat his way through by climbing on top of the hay bales.



And then I started whining about the cold and asked if we could please go get lunch and also, how many months until summer?!

Trick or Treat

+alternately titled: The lamest Halloween blog post title EVER.

I love Halloween. Really, really do. I trick or treated up through my senior year of high school, because you could not convince me that I was too old. I mean, really. Free candy. What's not to love about free candy? The answer to that obviously rhetorical question is that you should love everything about free candy. Even those crappy weird peanut butter-ish things that come in the orange or black wrappers. I mean, sure they taste like weird peanut flavored wax, but they're FREE.

My love for Halloween has multiplied since having kids (except for the part where they were so freaking hyper all day long because they could not wait for trick or treating--that part sucked). I love that Luke is old enough to choose his own costume and I love that instead of being a superhero or a monster, he chose.... well, you'll see that his costume is pretty obvious.

A UPS man. Yes, that's right. Of all the costumes in the world, my four year old chose to be a UPS man.

But isn't he the cutest UPS man you've ever seen? I think so (unless your child also dressed as a UPS man, then I will contend that it is a tie).

And Tommy who didn't really get to choose got to be a bird, because it's a nice warm costume. I realize that this is probably the last year that I'll get to choose for Tommy. I'm not really sad about that, instead I'm pretty excited to hear what he'll choose next Halloween.

His bag said bird seed on it. You can't see because he was busy practicing flapping his wings in this picture. Only Tommy.

We had such a great night trick or treating. Luke said thank you at every single house and Tommy perfected standing there sweetly smiling in such a way that he somehow got extra candy placed in his bag.

These guys. When did they get to be so big? Luke directed all of us to stand at the end of each driveway, while he held Tommy's hand and helped him up to the door. Last year, I had to walk both boys up to each door. What a difference a year makes.

(Shout out to my mom who made both boys' costumes.)

I hope your Halloween was full of smiles and candy!