Halloween 2011

Every year, I really look forward to our trip to the pumpkin patch, especially this year because it would be Mason's first time going. Once again, it was somewhat warm when we went but AnnaBeth enjoyed herself. The farm added a huge inflatable bounce pillow thing that she LOVED! Mason slept the whole time. We got a huge pumpkin this year and unfortunately, the carving tools broke while we were carving it. Kent took it to work the next day to try to fix it with one of his pneumatic tools but it didn't work and the pumpkin was ruined :(

We also attended the fall festival at Kent's parent's church again. AnnaBeth enjoyed the petting zoo the most and she even rode one of the ponies! Since it was another warm day, Mason went dressed in his little nerd outfit instead of his moose outfit that is fleece. He once again, slept almost the entire time we were there.

For trick or treating this year, we only went with family in Wendy's (Jill's sister) neighborhood (she lives a couple of blocks away from us on the other side of Cooper), instead of going through our neighborhood and hers. It had cooled down enough by the time we went out to trick or treat for Mason to wear his moose outfit and he was just the cutest thing! AnnaBeth finally got the concept this year and ran as fast as she could from house to house. At each house, we reminded her to say 'thank you' after she got her candy but instead she said 'you're welcome' each time. She was also very possessive of her candy. Her bucket got so full and heavy that she was nearly dragging it on the ground but wouldn't let any of us carry it for her. So I ended up tying the ends of Mason's large and light weight swaddle blanket to make a sack and we emptied her candy into it. She protested at first but then went on her merry way with an empty bucket to get more candy. We did our best to avoid anything scary but weren't quick enough at one house where I could hear the guy "scaring" the kids as they walked up. AnnaBeth rounded his drive way to head up to the front door and he still had his scary mask on and she stopped dead in her tracks. I assured her it was ok and by then he had taken his mask off and offered her some candy. As we were walking to the next house she told me that the man looked like a tiger. I was so relieved! His mask had stripes on it so a tiger is what she thought it looked like. Anything else that was potentially scary as we passed it we just told her that it was just Halloween stuff and she was ok with that answer and wasn't scared. For a couple of weeks after Halloween, AnnaBeth kept telling me "mommy, I have to put my costume on and we have to go trick or treating!" It was so fun to watch her this year and see her be excited about her costume.