Evan couldn’t stop asking all day when it would be time to go trick-or-treating. He’s been asking me how many days left until Halloween for two weeks now. So after some morning errands and afternoon pumpkin carving, we headed over to Grandma and Papa’s house. Of course, Evan made sure I didn’t forget his costume or candy basket.
After a little snack, it was costume time. Evan, all dressed up in his Elmo costume, was ready to go. I hadn’t planned on taking Seth trick-or-treating yet since he doesn’t say “trick-or-treat” and doesn’t really get the concept and I figured he would just run around outside anyway. Well, any thought I may have had passed as soon as we tried to get his costume on. Grandma made him an adorable Grover costume, but he wanted nothing to do with it tonight. As soon as I tried to put the body on, he started screaming “no” and kicking his feet trying to get out. Once I managed to get him in it, I tried to put the head on. He was tearing it off as fast as I could put it on. Everyone tried it on for him to see if he would try too, which he loved and laughed for, but as soon as I tried to put it back on his head he would scream again. We did manage to get a picture of him in it (while I was holding his hands down), but once we had that, off the costume came. So daddy and Grandma stayed home with Seth to pass out candy while Papa and I took Evan trick-or-treating.
Evan wanted to go to lots of houses because he needed to fill up his pumpkin to the top. I asked him why it needed to be full and he told me he learned about that on Little Einsteins (if you have seen the Halloween episode, you know why). So Papa and I took him around the neighborhood and he got a lot of candy. Not quite a full pumpkin, but pretty darn close. He was not afraid to take more than one piece when it was offered. We did run into a little problem near the end when two houses had scary decorations and sounds. He doesn’t really like the scary stuff (and has asked me several times over the last couple weeks to make sure to tell Grandma not to put any scary things up). At the first house he ran and hid. At the second house the lady had to turn off the moving hand in the candy bowl before Evan would get near it. When we left though, he told her, “You can turn the hand back on now.”
We came back and checked out the loot, which Evan had to line up and sort by type. Is this kid mine or what? Then the boys each got to have a piece, after which they both begged for more. Evan had a great time and is already asking when it will be Halloween again. Since this is one of my favorite holidays, I’m glad he enjoys it too. He told me at the end of the night that, “This was a great day.” I’m sure glad he had fun.
Well, it’s been a bit hectic around here lately, so we finally got around to carving pumpkins this afternoon. Nothing like last minute, right? Evan chose the designs for his pumpkin and mommy’s pumpkin, and after I drew the faces he was very excited to get carving. Evan tried really hard, but I think it will be a couple more years before he really gets the hang of it. When we were done he wanted to light them up. Of course, he was upset that the lights weren’t brighter, but what does he expect at 3:00 in the afternoon? He was excited to see them lit up in the dark.
Evan at work on his pumpkin.
Evan with his final product (with a little help from mommy).
The final products – Evan’s on the left and mommy’s on the right.
So, for those of you who have been seriously annoyed by my constant hacking for the last month, there is hope on the horizon. After a weekend of constant coughing spasms and only a few hours of sleep per night, I was finally convinced to go see the doctor. So I went today and he gave me some medicine that he assures me will get me cured in a week. Well, if not, he says, come back and we’ll see if something else is going on. Let’s hope it clears up and isn’t some kind of allergy that will never go away.
We went to South Coast Farms (a local organic farm in San Juan Capistrano) to look at some pumpkins for family night. The boys had fun running around and rolling pumpkins around on the ground.
Our ward at church had our annual Fall Festival last night. There was a chili cookoff, games, and a trunk-or-treat. I took Evan and he had a great time playing games and getting lots of treats from the cars. We also got a chance to test out his Halloween costume, which went over really well.
Evan playing a little spooky golf.
A little ring toss with the missionaries.
To balance out all the tragic fire info, here are some cute pictures of Seth. A few nights ago he climbed up into the chair, got snuggly in the pillows and started to read. He has seen Evan do that a lot, so I’m sure that’s where he got the idea.
Although the winds were bad for firefighters, I think they were pretty good for us. I woke up this morning to a smoke-filled brown sky and when I went to look outside, the smoke smell was the worst it’s been so far. I also saw ash flying in the air at my house for the first time instead of just seeing the black dust that has landed everywhere. Now that the winds are dying down, I don’t think there is anything to quickly push the smoke away so it’s just sitting in the air, all around us. I guess it will be a day of staying indoors with the a/c on to avoid it as much as we can. It certainly makes me appreciate what all the people close to the fires have been dealing with all these days.
Does anyone else feel like the whole world is on fire right now? It seems like everywhere you turn another fire is burning. I can’t remember a time when there were this many simultaneous fires burning so much and in such a large area from Santa Barbara to San Diego. 12+ fires, 500,000+ evacuees, 10 deaths so far, hundreds of houses lost!
We saw the flames of the Santiago Canyon fire when we were driving home from my inlaws in Irvine on Sunday. Little did we know half of the state doing the same thing. I want to strangle the arsonist that set that fire! Even though we are blessed to be nowhere any of the flames, the air quality everywhere just stinks. Jonny got sent home from work in San Diego on Monday because it was so bad, and if you have watched the news lately, I don’t think it’s getting any better. The sky is brown and there is dust/ashes/yucky stuff all over the house. There are so many people being evacuated and I feel so horribly for them. With all the areas that are burning from the beaches to the mountains, there just isn’t anywhere to go. And even if you wanted to, there are so many roads and freeways shut down you couldn’t get anywhere anyway. If this keeps up, we all may just end up at the beach while the fires come over the hills and force us all into the ocean for refuge.
We know some people who have been evacuated, but thankfully we haven’t heard any negative news from any friends and family we have in the affected areas (Irvine, San Diego, Agoura Hills) so we’ll just keep praying that everyone stays safe.
Here’s some pics from ABC viewers of the Santiago Canyon fire in Irvine.
Jonny was playing hide and seek with the boys tonight and they were just being too cute. Evan was leaning up against the sliding door and covering his eyes to count. Seth caught sight of that and decided he wanted to do it too (that whole monkey see, monkey do thing again…). So Evan would count to 10 then say “ready or not, here I come.” Seth was counting along with Evan – he is actually really good at counting to three and is getting better at four and five. It’s cute to hear his baby talk turning into real words (at least I can understand more and more of them, even if no one else can). They would count and then run upstairs to find daddy. The boys were just adorable counting together so I had to snap a couple pictures.
Evan doesn’t like to clean up. That’s one of the things we struggle with at home all the time. He has no problem pulling out every toy in the toy box (or just turning it upside down and dumping everything on the floor), but once I ask him to put them away, he always comes up with an excuse to do something else and clean up later. Well last night we had dinner at Grandma and Papa’s house and when it was time to leave, Daddy told Evan it was time to clean up. Well Evan, who had refused to eat anything for dinner because he only wanted to play with toys, suddenly shouts out in his saddest, whiniest voice, “No, No, No, I haven’t had dinner yet.” That gave us all a good chuckle.
