HALLOWEEN

The big night finally arrived, and the weather was beautiful. We were able to go trick-or-treating in short sleeves, and Jack was able to go with us. We went trick-or-treating as soon as we could, and planned on getting back by dark in order to hand out candy to other ghosts and goblins. We ran in to a lot of neighbors who were trick-or-treating (don't worry - they were all okay), and didn't make it back home until well after dark. We still had several trick-or-treaters, and I must say that Ethan is the most generous candy hander-outter I have ever seen. We had to start rationing it a little bit, otherwise we would have run out after about 7 trick-or-treaters. He was kind of diappointed when it was all over for the evening. He kept checking the window to see if any more people were coming to our door. Between all of Ethan's Halloween events, he will definitely need some help consuming all of his candy. Ah, the sacrifices that parents must make for their kids!

BOO AT THE ZOO

Our local zoo hosts a "Boo at the Zoo" event during the weeks leading up to Halloween. We have a family membership to the zoo, so we were allowed to attend free of charge. The kids basically get to trick or treat around the zoo. We went the night before Halloween, and it was packed. Once we got in, Ethan had a good time. He even got to pet a blue-tongued skink, a box turtle, a rabbit and a Guinea pig while we were there. The old feller holding the skink told us all about it and showed Ethan his blue tongue (the skink's, not the old feller's). The man pointed to it, so Ethan decided to put his hand there too and got really close to its mouth. I thought the man was going to have a coronary. "Oh, don't pet his head!" he exclaimed. Clean up on aisle 7.

As we proceeded through the zoo, many of the people there kept saying "well hi Ethan!" I just assumed that they were people that Mandy knew, but after a while I started asking who people were. After three or four times, Mandy finally asked me why I thought she knew all of these people. I told her I just figured they were friends of hers because I didn't know them. It was at that exact moment that it hit me...oh, yeah, Ethan's name is on his trick-or-treating pumpkin. Mandy got a good laugh out of that one.

TRUNK OR TREAT

Well, the highly anticipated "Trunk or Treat" night at our church had finally arrived and all Ethan had to do was finish his Happy Meal. He insisted he was not hungry and was going to be sick if we made him eat any more. That boy is more and more like his papa every day. We just thought he was tricking us (it's been known to happen before), so we waited him out. He was very quiet on the way to the church building, until about a mile away when we heard that wonderful sound. Ethan decided it was finally time to purge himself of his chicken nuggets, milk and fries, topped off with the oranges he had for lunch that day. By the time we pulled off the highway and started catching the remnants in his trick or treat pumpkin, his entire monkey outfit, the car seat, the seat protector underneath the car seat, and the van seat itself were saturated in, well, there's really no word to properly describe it. We stripped his monkey suit off, and he was fine after that. Fortunately, he had clothes on underneath and we continued on to the festivities. Jack got a little toasty in his banana outfit, so he shed his costume rather soon after we got there as well. Ethan had a blast, and even got to get a tattoo! He also enjoyed telling anyone who would listen that he threw up because his mama made him eat too much.