Halloween 2012

Happy Halloween!

We once again met up with friends to go trick or treating. Every year we leave a bowl of candy out on our front step with a sign for kids to take just one. Everyone knows that some kid empties the entire bowl into his bag each year, and Henry must have overheard me saying something about it because this year he insisted we put up a "security camera" of his invention to thwart would-be greedy candy thieves.

(It may have worked...for the first time ever there was still candy left upon our return!)

The excitement of Halloween was too much early on for Elliot:

The kids all got ready:

(yes, my friend's kids are dressed as Gotye and Kimbra from the "Somebody that I used to know" video. Most people thought they were zombies)

And Henry had a blast gathering as much candy as he could:

7 Months

Elliot is 7 months old!

What is our 7 month old up to? Well, he has his first tooth! His bottom middle left tooth popped through last week (in the midst of a bad cold, too. Poor thing). That sucker is SHARP, let me tell you. He may be getting his next lower middle tooth now - it is hard to tell, but he is a chewing maniac and has been pretty grumpy the past few days:

He sits!

He can't get into sitting position on his own yet, but can stay that way for quite a while when you place him in it.

Still commando crawling like a maniac. He is into everything - loves pulling books off shelves, goes right after power cords, may have eaten part of a magazine the other day.... He gets up on hands and knees constantly (which makes Henry chant "Hands and knees! Hands and knees!" very loudy whenever it occurs) but has yet to achieve motion like that.

He still isn't the hottest napper on the block, and still prefers a 5:30 AM wake up time (which fill us with dread at the thought of changing the clocks this weekend), but has moved his bedtime to 6:30 at night, so he gets a decent amount of night sleep.

He loves his solid food - we have yet to try something he dislikes. He loves feeding himself pieces of avocado and banana, but is a big mess while doing it, and drops 99% of it on the floor. His favorite foods may be peas, avocado (yeah!), and Greek yogurt.

Happy 7 months, Elliot!

Who wore it best? Monkey Edition

Henry:

Elliot:

Donuts on a String

We had the 2nd Annual Powell Halloween Extravaganza this weekend! To prepare, Henry carved his jack o lantern:

And we baked and decorated Halloween cupcakes:

During the party the kids made Halloween Shrinky-Dinks (which they were VERY excited by):

Played "pin the face on the mummy":

And once again played everyone's favorite game - Donuts on a string!:

Actually, that is a lie. It was far from everyone's favorite game and in fact caused tears for many participants. Next year we will just hand out the donuts to eat.

Halloween pre-season

Halloween has already gotten off to a start here - over a week early. In the morning we stopped by a local farmstand for more pumpkins (I am not sure when we will have time to carve all of these...)

The afternoon brought our first Halloween party...And here is the big costume reveal!!!!

We have succumbed to the dark side.

And here we see Elliot and Ben, both a touch confused about what the heck is going on:

Who Wore it Best? Hat edition

Henry's old winter gear has been brought out - who wore the hat best?

Henry:

Elliot:

The Force is With Him

Henry has moved on to a new obsession. No more trains (sad - since we own about 5,000 trains. Maybe Elliot will enjoy them in a few years). No more garbage trucks. No more Toy Story. These days, he is completely infatuated with...Star Wars. More importantly - Lego Star Wars.

Last year several of his friends started getting into Star Wars. Henry was very resistant - he wouldn't watch the movies since he thought they would be scary, so he didn't care about it very much. Then a few months ago Mike somehow finagled Henry into watching the first Star Wars movie (well, Episode 4 - you know what I mean) and Henry discovered his new passion. (As a side note - we did have to fast forward a lot of "Return of the Jedi" - Jabba the Hut is apparently very frightening).

He is specifically enamored of Storm Troopers and Droids (and, alas, their weaponry, which has caused some long conversations in this house). He spends all day building endless Star Wars vehicles with Legos:

(yes, he has really dirty fingernails - this is post T-Ball. But isn't the ship he built awesome??)

This one makes me laugh - I was in the kitchen doing something and he told me I was making too much noise and had to be quiet because his "stormtroopers were sleeping". I looked over, and he had made little Lego beds for all of them:

Let's all guess what his Halloween costume this year will be.....

Columbus Day 2012

We mixed things up this year - instead of our traditional Vermont trip over Columbus Day weekend, we had a mini family reunion weekend with Nana, Papa, Uncle Dave, Aunt Jen, and Cousin Evan and headed back to one of our favorite spots - Plum Island. The weather was still nice enough for the kids to enjoy the beach, and we all had a great time with various fall themed activities.

On Saturday we headed to Connors Farm. We picked some pumpkins:

Henry spent about 30 minutes on the inflatible slide:

Rode the pedal bikes:

And went on the cow tractor ride:

And we all succesfully navigated the corn maze (unlike last year, when we were thwarted by the corn):

In the afternoon we took Henry and Evan to the beach for some digging fun:

Sunday morning we all headed into Newburyport, where they were having a small fall festival:

And then back to the beach (although a LOT colder this day!):

On Monday the rest of the family had to head home, but the 4 of us decided to stay until Tuesday. We took a last beach walk (the beach in the Fall is one of my favorite things):

And then spent the afternoon at the Topsfield Fair! Henry won a dinosaur (well, he came in second, but the very nice woman who did win let him take the prize):

Went in about 3 funhouses:

And went on some rides:

All while Elliot was the ultimate people watcher:

Then it was back to Boston on Tuesday afternoon. Plum Island was lovely this time of year, and we all had a great weekend together!