Happy Halloween!

The weather was perfect for a slow saunter around the block, nabbing candy at every opportunity. Jenni stayed home to answer the door - and for the first time ever, we ran out of candy! Yay! Luckily, the girls snagged several pieces of candy they were too young to enjoy (gum, gum and more gum), so we snagged that when the bowl first went dry. Then, Jeneric had so much fun giving candy away that she volunteered candy from her own haul to give away! Toddler Wily, however, kept her candy well guarded at all times.

Ready to hit the street:




The haul:




Giving away our own candy!


Enjoying the sugar rush:


(p.s. Don't forget to vote! And take your kid(s) with you!)

Toddler Wily's Costume: Answer revealed

If you guessed Naked Puppy, you were correct.

What? It wasn't obvious?

Another Halloween Costume

Really, you must guess what Toddler Wily's costume is this time.

Random Tuesday

1. When it's time to be a superhero, you can put together a costume with a leotard and dishtowel. Yes, we do need to watch The Incredibles for Edna's sound advice about capes.


2. Halloween is coming, which means costumes from Grammy (thanks!). Jeneric plays in hers, straight up, no modifications.


Toddler Wily, on the other hand.

Well, this isn't her costume at all (she's got an awesome puppy outfit). This is a bathrobe. With a cat on the back. Which means, when you add a trick-or-treat bag, it's a cat costume. Anyone want to bet on which costume she goes trick-or-treating in?

3. Honeycrisp apples are in season and we're all enjoying them.

Halloween, Part II

But first, a brief movie of Toddler Wily - doing what she does best: wiggling.


So, Halloween night. After saying Happy Halloween to all the grandparents, Toddlers Wily & Jeneric suited up and hit the road.

Toddler Jeneric bounded from one door to another, though her 'Trick-or-treats' were often barely audible.


She was a bit braver when she could tag along with some big kids.


That smile? That's for an amazing, loud and clear 'Trick-or-Treat'!


Toddler Wily, meanwhile, stayed put in what was to become the neighborhood's largest candy bag.


More smiles from Eric and Toddler Jeneric. Toddler Wily is a bit disaffected.


Toddler Jeneric declared that we would go until her pumpkin pail was full, which, lucky for us equated to one trip around the block.


Like all *good* parents, we let Toddler Jeneric pick out 2 pieces of candy to have right away (well, after the bath). She chose the largest piece of candy - a blue Pixie Stick. Jenni couldn't quite convey the correct way to eat a Pixie Stick without eating some, so we dumped it into a bowl, gave her a spoon and let her have at it.


Mm, the lovely glow of artificially colored sugar.

Halloween begins

Around these parts, we like to take our time with things. Draw them out a bit. Really savor the festivities, which, given the number of gray days we have around here makes sense. This is certainly true of Halloween, which began Thursday with the annual Pumpkin walk downtown. We don't understand why it's called the Pumpkin walk - there are no pumpkins and there is no specific route to walk. The goal is to acquire as much candy as possible from the local merchants, have a dinner without waiting in enormous lines and make it home without downing half the loot. This year, we were successful on all three counts.

We join our intrepid, costumed heroes with their pumpkins already heavy with candy.


Toddler Wily loved pulling on her ears and Toddler Jeneric just loved being in costume.





The University's Greek community puts on a Safe Halloween event concurrently with the Pumpkin Walk. Toddler Jeneric put the finishing touch on her costume with a quick face paint.



She wasn't much in the mood to roar loudly, but we did manage to get her to say several audible 'trick-or-treats' and 'thank yous'.



Meanwhile, Toddler Wily was overwhelmed, hot (it was over 60° F today!) and really not sure what to make of everything.



Safe Halloween also had a slide, which Toddler Jeneric eagerly attempted. The climb up was slow, and she hesitated for a moment at the top.



Before flinging herself down the slide... rather slowly, in fact.



She went so slowly that the little mouse could wait no more, and started down after her.



Finally, the ring toss, which was definitely not our strong suit!



More Halloween to come!

Getting ready for Halloween

Trick-or-treating is just around the corner and Toddler Jeneric is well into the spirit this year. Let's start with the pumpkin carving.

Here's Toddler Jeneric very excited about creating a jack-o-lantern (she's learned all about jack-o-lantern's through the Berenstain Bears).


And here's Toddler Jeneric horrified that creating a jack-o-lantern means carving into the pumpkin with a knife!


And here's Eric, horrified at his carving skills!


What's inside?


Here, let me pull some of that out for you!


No one wanted to pull out the goopy innards, so it was Jenni to the rescue.


Oh and Rrawr!

Happy Halloween!

Last time we met, Toddler Jeneric was hesitant to dress as a Lion. Never fear - time and patience won the day.

A few days after that post, Toddler Jeneric got a little giddy about her Lion hat...


Which resulted in this on Thursday afternoon:

Toddler Jeneric was eager to get suited up for the Great Pumpkin walk downtown. Note the key ingredient: a pumpkin bucket.


Also note the tail. Toddler Jeneric would very much like for you to know that she has a tail. See?


So we headed downtown to trick-or-treat on Thursday, where Toddler Jeneric never said trick-or-treat, but she did say Thank You! and maybe an occasional roar (very quietly, though). Here she is at the first stop:

This little lion was seriously confused - I hold out the pumpkin and people put in candy?

Baby Wily politley ignored the hullabaloo and dozed in her pumpkin outfit.


We repeated the festivities on Halloween, with a parade around the neighborhood and trick-or-treating, too.

Don't let Toddler Jeneric fool you - she enjoyed being a Lion and going from house to house (so much so that we had to beg her to take off the costume!).

Baby Wily says, yes, I am in the pumpkin outfit again. Mama dressed me in this all week. I am a person, people, not a pumpkin! (but she's a cute pumpkin, eh?).

Leo the Lion goes Grr!

While waiting for Baby Wily to make her grand entrance, Grammy put together a fantastic Halloween costume for Toddler Jeneric. We took an afternoon to haunt the local craft store and Toddler Jeneric picked out a lion costume - so she'd have a good reason to practice growling. In near record time there was a tail, paws and a mane. Grr!

But Toddler Jeneric wanted no part in wearing the costume.

Below, we present the few images we snagged of Toddler Jeneric not wearing a lion costume. Nay, she is wearing lion paw slippers and pajamas. If we're lucky, we'll get her to wear a lion hat later this week (she put it on very briefly and we were too slow with the camera).

We started with the slippers:


Then we told her about the tail:


In the end, she was pretty happy with most of the ensemble:


But the mane! Well, wee've got a few days to work on that!