Halloween in the Middle of November

My apologies to Grandma Lynn, to whom I told these would be up yesterday.  I think she knows me pretty well by now, though. ;)

Just like last year, we headed over to Pella to trick-or-treat with our good friends, The Knoxes.  I was pretty worried about how Cameron would do since he typically goes to bed around 7 or 7:30pm.  A late night is 8pm for him!  Thankfully, I got him to take a nap late in the afternoon and he was a perfect little angel all through trick-or-treating!  It really couldn't have gone better if I'd written the scenario out myself!

Cameron, Owen, Jason, and Brandon--this was the best I could get with all 4 of them.  As you can see, Cameron wasn't a fan of his hood.  Thankfully he left it on just long enough to get a few pictures. 

Is he the cutest little dog or what?  Notice Mickey had to join us for the evening!

The Fire Fighter and his Dalmation Dog

The first house.  Brandon was so cute running with the big boys!  He would say, "Wait for me!" when they got too far ahead of him.

Our little doggie just sat in his stroller cuddling with his blankie and enjoy some Cheerios.  Our little dog even stayed true to his costume at one of the houses when there was a big dog tied up outside barking at him.  He giggled endlessly everytime the dog would bark and then he started barking back at him to get the dog barking even more!  Then he would giggle more!  It was the cutest thing and I wish I'd gotten it on video!

These were on the porch of one of the houses we went to.  I thought the Mr. Potato Head pumpkins were so cute!  And much less messy and easier for little ones than traditional carving.

After the boys collected their loot, we made our way back to Chuck and Dawn's house to enjoy a little dessert that Owen and I had made:

This was Owen's idea and we had so much fun making it together!

Cameron not being much of a cake fan (I'm officially starting to question if he's actually my child), had a ball playing with all the Knox boys' toys.  I couldn't resist how cute he looked in his costume so I had to take a few photos.

I'm pretty sure your house would burn down if this fire fighter was on the job, but isn't he too cute?

I believe this concludes our Halloween festivities.  Who knows, maybe I'll even get Thanksgiving photos up before December starts!  A big thank you to the Knoxes for letting us crash their neighborhood again!

Pumpkin Carving Time!

We couldn't leave the Pumpkin Farm without a pumpkin to carve.  Cody and Owen picked it out and Cody said that as they were looking Owen said, "I have to find one that isn't very dirty because Mommy doesn't like dirt."  He knows his mama well, that boy does.  After finding a relatively clean one, we brought it home and carved it the following week.  Of course, we couldn't make it a jack-o-lantern like most people do.  We had to carve Thomas into it!  (Daddy wasn't nearly as excited about this as Owen was.)

Owen helped scoop the "guts" out, as he called it, and then left all the carving to Daddy.  I believe he was supposed to be the special helper, but I don't think there was much helping going on.

It's hard to see in the light, but it did turn out pretty cool.  The most important part, of course, was that Owen LOVED it!

At the rate Cameron is going with his newfound love of Thomas, I have a feeling this won't be the last Thomas pumpkin Daddy carves!  Next up, costumes!

Carroll's Pumpkin Farm

A town about 20 minutes east of us has a great Pumpkin Farm so we thought that would be a great activity for us to do while Grandma was visiting.  We had a great day for it, save for a bit of wind and some mud leftover from all the rain.  There were a couple of times when we thought our wagon was going to get stuck in the mud on our tour of the patch!  Thankfully it was being pulled by a monster of a tractor and we made it through!  Here are a few highlights from the day...

The World Famous Pumpkin Tree

Owen loved this dog!

Owen and Daddy having fun on the wheelbarrow course.

This was the highlight of Cameron's day.  He laughed and giggled in this swing for the longest time.  He just loved it and it was so cute!

One of the barns has a TMX Trike course.  We soon discovered Owen wasn't quite ready for extreme triking when he fell over trying to get his trike through a tunnel.  No injuries though and he shook it off pretty well!

Owen and Daddy shooting corn through the cannon.

This is what they called a Pumpkin Pillow.  Owen wanted to jump on it but Cody and I were a little leary because it just didn't seem too safe to us.  All we saw when we looked at it were a bunch of broken necks!  I told Owen he could only go on if Daddy went with him and Cody relunctantly agreed.  There are no pictures of them actually on it because I was busy wheeling Cameron around in the stroller!  But they enjoyed it and Owen walked away unscathed.

These next two photos are really for my Mom.  First up, the characters from "Arthur":

And we can't forget Curious George and The Man in the Yellow Hat!

We all really enjoyed ourselves and can't wait to go back again next where we hope Cameron will get to enjoy it and experience it even more!

You know what they say....

Ok, so it's December 2nd and I'm just getting around to the Halloween pictures. Better late than never! Between finishing the basement, someone always being sick at any given moment, and hosting Thanksgiving, the blog has just been greatly neglected. But I was hit with some motivation tonight so I'm hoping to bring you lots of updates in the days to come! So first we'll start with Cameron's very first Halloween...

Our little pumpkin, who hated the hood on his costume. At least he left it on long enough for a picture!

Owen is still obsessed with this Spider-Man costume. He just puts it on and wears it around the house! It's the cutest thing.

Look closely at his hand and you can see he's shooting his web at you.

The first house. He was so excited to trick-or-treat this year. He would knock on the door and yell, "Trick or treat!" before they even opened the door! Then when they got there he would say, "I'm your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!" After they gave him candy he would shut the door on them so he could hurry off to the next house! Then after the first couple of houses he said, "Daddy, can you carry my bucket?" Cody said, "Are you tired already?!" He said, "No, all this candy just makes it very heavy!"

Cam was content in his stroller as long as he had some Cheerios to munch on!

After hitting some houses in the neighborhood we headed over to the hospital. They do a big thing there and each wing does their own theme. The clinic did a Disney theme. Owen is getting candy from the Wicked Witch!

Here's Woody and his horse

In Newton, they did trick-or-treating on Thursday night because they don't like to do it on weekends. But Pella still did it on Friday night so we headed over there the next night! Owen was so excited to go 2 nights in a row. We tagged along with our good friends, Chuck, Dawn, Jason, and Brandon. The big boys had a ball running around to all the houses.

Cameron tried to dip into the Knox's stash!

Brandon, Jason, Cam, and Owen

It was so much fun to see it all through Owen's eyes this year. I can't imagine what it will be like next year when we have 2 running around!

Frolicking in the Autumn Mist...

Happy Halloween! Yes, I know it's been a while since I've posted. Owen and I were in Murphysboro for 10 days and I just couldn't get it together to post while I was there. So now I'll start with our trick-or-treat night last night and then I'll go back and post pictures of all the fun we had with the family in the 'boro. We went to Pella last night and trick-or-treated with our good friends the Eisenbarths. Owen had lots of fun and caught on to it really quickly. He just loved it and Cody and I loved watching him experience it for the first time. He was the cutest little dragon out there, even though many thought he was a dinosaur! :)

Here's our little dragon, whom Auntie Beth nicknamed "Puff."

No dragon is complete without his wings and tail!

Grace the Vampiress, Owen the Dragon, and Lizzie the Barbie Fairy (she has a name, which I asked twice and I still can't remember! Sorry, Lizzie!)

First we headed to a nearby church where they do a "Trunk-or-Treat." That's where the parishoners bring their cars to the church parking lot and hand out candy from their trunks. It is great because you don't have to walk far and you end up with a lot of candy in a short amount of time!

Here's our little Dragon filling up his pumkin! Although, Cody said he doesn't quite know how to pick the "good" candy yet. :)

His first house

And you know me, I love to get pics of my two boys walking together. And it's even cuter when you see the back of the dragon!

Alas, our dragon got a little tuckered out by the end of the night and had to hitch a ride. Look at how heavy his pumpkin is!

We did get him to pose for one last picture before we headed home. Notice my husband got rid of the goatee while we were gone. I never thought he looked that young before, but now that he's shaved, I think he looks like a teenager!

So that was the Muhs Halloween! We had a great time and can't wait to do it again next year. Stay tuned for lots more pictures from the last two weeks! Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Yes, I know, it has been quite a while since my last post. We have been very busy with Cade arriving and then travelling home. I have just been exhausted from the trip and still have tons of unpacking to do, piles of laundry to attend to, and then even the fun stuff like catching up on magazines and TV shows has become a chore! LOL I will do a post with lots of Cade pictures soon--Owen was so cute with him. And, of course, I'll post some pictures of my trip. Right now, I will just post some pictures of my cute little tiger on Halloween. We're not trick-or-treating, as he doesn't get the concept, it's too cold, and Cody and I don't need to eat all that candy! So I just dressed him up for some photos today. That was difficult enough as he didn't want to stand still for a second! But I got a couple of good ones. My hat goes off to whomever designed this costume--you can't get the hood off unless it's unzipped! Genius! He tried and tried but could never get it! Anyway, here he is, runny nose and all. ;)

I know all you Cards fans are upset to see that I dressed my son up as a tiger but hey, the costume was purchased LAST YEAR on clearance so deal with it. Have a good Halloween!