Trick or Treat!

Frankenstein was dressed early & was on the loose...

His first stop...to hang with "The other Frankenstein."
He was so precious as he kept telling me,
"Mommy TWO Frankensteins. TWO Frankensteins!"

After hanging with Frankenstein at the neighbor's house for a few minutes, we loaded up and headed to a "Halloween Party." This "party" was more like an hour length costume kiddie hang out full of songs, crafts, snacks, and goodies full of parents standing with cameras in hope of making fun Halloween memories for their little ones. Well, this Mom, made the mistake of calling this outing a "party", because my child associates a party with c-a-k-e. Imagine his disappointment when I kept talking of how much fun this party would be and then he comes to find there is no c-a-k-e anywhere to be found! Let's just say this short fun-filled hour meeting was more work than it was worth! At least Connor fit the part as 'monster' with his costume on ;)

We peeled out of the hot costume for a nice nap, refueled, and then got suited up once again for the long awaited "trick or treating." We all met at Nana & Papa's and went trick or treating around their neighborhood. It was a flashback to my childhood Halloweens. The Meyer family even came by with their kids, so it really was a flashback to when we would all go around together. Only now, we're watching our kids do it! It was pretty neat :)

If only this picture had sound...
My little Frankenstein just giggled and clapped his little hands until he got Nana's motion-sensor talking jack-o-lantern to talk. It was pretty darn adorable...

Nana & Papa also had a neighbor that went all out with their decorations. Connor spent a good half hour playing in their yard at the end of the night!

Connor hitched a ride in Kaylee & Austin's wagon

The Sluders' precious Olivia pumpkin had the same idea...

Connor kept right up there with the bigger kids, shooting out his "Trick or Treat" and "Thank you." He even threw in a few "Happy Halloweens." It made his Mama quite proud :)

These neighbors (Stan and Judy) had a special place in their heart for Connor. We definitely made sure to stop by their house!

(This picture makes me laugh! It sums up about every house we went up to. At least one person was taken out by Aidan's Buzz Lightyear wings! The best part was Aidan had no idea the entire time! :) )


My precious monster was excellent all night!

Connor tried a few goodies while we were still collecting...
Connor was introduced to an oatmeal creme pie...and enjoyed every crumb of it!
He tried a few M&Ms and cheeseballs, but handed them over to me pretty quickly after he decided they weren't the greatest. I happily accepted :)
I will be thrilled (and probably heavier) if Connor continues to not eat candy!

This was one memorable Halloween!
We got back to the house to find Matt waiting for us (looking all handsome in his business clothes). It was Matt's first day of work for Parker Hannifin! After a few months of anxiously waiting to hear if he got the job, we were so very excited to learn he would be a part of that wonderful company.

All in all, we had a wonderful Halloween! :)

Happy Halloween!

About a month ago, Connor was this scrumptious cheeseburger...

and then as the Halloween festivities began, Connor developed a love for Frankenstein.

I knew he'd make one cute one, so we traded in his sesame seed buns for this scary costume...

More photos to come :)

Halloween Madness

Matt & I have been saying all week...

"What will we do when Halloween is over?!"

We have been to several "fun places" the past few weeks to celebrate Fall Festivals and Halloween shananigans. Connor loves to scope out Halloween decorations everywhere we go! Here's a collection of the kiddie activities we've participated in lately. :)

My idea of family fun pumpkin carving went a little like this...

We encourage Connor to help scoop out the pumpkin gookies...

Connor thought the gookies were gross & decided to fling his pumpkin guts all over...

Since we had two pumpkins to work on and an uninterested child to entertain, the cooler caught Connor's interest :)

The next 3 hours were pretty much me entertaining Connor while Matt continued to plug away with the intricate detail of the pumpkins. Then just before Connor's bedtime, Matt's masterpieces were complete!

Meet Eeyore & Tigger
(There's one cute smiley boy in this picture...you just have to squint to see him!)

After a good picture of the pumpkins, I wanted a good picture of my little munchkin :)

Yesterday, we headed out to two Fall Festivals. Talk about kiddie fun overload! Connor had a blast & God Bless Matt for tagging along with a smile the whole time :)

Connor could not get enough of these creepy clowns. The one standing up was pretty nice & kid friendly, while the one sitting down clearly hated his clown life & had little patience for children! I got a kick out of the fact that Connor insisted on standing right in front of Mr. Crabby Clown & would randomly talk to him! We stood in front of these clowns for a good 30 minutes while they worked like turtles making balloon animals. It was free entertainment and Connor loved every second of it, so Matt & I waited patiently :).

I adore his precious face!

We headed over to see the firemen and get a close up look of their fire truck. We were happy to see "Fireman Dean" was there to greet us (my best friend's older brother). Connor looked so teeny weeny sitting up in the truck :)

I wished this picture came out a little better, but I had promised Connor we could go on the bounce house once we did the firetruck. I'm pretty sure Connor had the bounce house on his mind right about now...

After the Fall festival, we headed to a buddy's birthday party then rested up for another Halloween gathering at the local storage unit down the street (fun fun activities in Cape Coral!!). Connor had fun grabbing the candy from each booth, although he's not the candy eater at all. He enjoyed a few games, crafts, and checking out the Halloween decor.

Hope everyone has a happy Halloween! I'm gonna need to be extra creative to get Connor just as excited for Thanksgiving as he was for Halloween. :) Wish me luck!

The Great Pumpkin!

I am LOVING this Halloween stuff with Connor! Probably because he is LOVING all this Halloween stuff! We've stocked up on the cutest Halloweeny movies from the library (Charlie Brown, Mickey's Halloween, Charlie & Lola's Halloween). We watch one at least once a day now & Connor loves to recite many scenes from Charlie Brown (which I never notices how often they say "stupid" and call kids "block head" on Charlie Brown until I had a parrot of a child watching it!). Amazingly enough, Connor hasn't recited any of those parts! We scoped out the Halloween ad for Bass Pro Shops, so we headed there a few days ago to see all the fun stuff they had for kiddies. A trip to Bass Pro Shop is right up Papa's alley, so we, of course, had Nana & Papa tag along with us!

Papa & Mr. Mickey Ears checking out the boats on the way in to Bass Pro...

(Sidenote: It's the cutest thing ever to hear how Connor likes to "catch big fish or baby fish with Papa." He loves to "go fast Papa's boat," and is super cute when we drive over any bridge & Connor announces "Mom, I see Papa's boat!" and points off at any given boat. I'm looking forward to all the kid fishing tournaments that Connor can go to with his Papa & Uncle Craig in the future :)).


Nothing better than "Charlie Brown & Snoopy!!"


We tried a "take two" to see if we could get a better smiley face on Mickey :)

We then wandered over to try out some crafts. This lasted a good few seconds before Connor was ready to go see cooler stuff like the fish tanks!

The had a 'trick or treat' line going around the store with kiddies dressed up in costumes. We opted to not go around in the line and instead, to just beeline it to the nearest candy bowl for a "blue bobo-pop." Connor doesn't care for any candy--not even chocolate (I'm grateful for that)! He has warmed up to the idea of the lollipop though.

Sitting on the fish bench waiting for Papa at checkout.


We enjoyed a little walk to see the doggies in a costume contest before sitting down to supper. When we got home, we had to say hello to all of Connor's pumpkin buddies in the front yard! Connor informed me that he named his pumpkins recently and they go by the names of "Scary, Harry, Larry, Goofy, Mickey, Minnie, Daisy..." He decided to kiss them goodnight before we unplugged them and "let the pumpkins get smooshed" for bed!

This is my neighbor's house across the street. They are decorating fanatics!! They decorate for all holidays and fill the entire yard...(even for Valentine's day!). They've been up north the past few years, so when they came home before Halloween this year, we were so so so excited! Connor loves to go over into their yard (at least 3x a day!). It is the first thing that comes out of Connor's mouth when he wakes and the last thing that he wants to do before bed!
"Go see spooky Halloween stuff neighbor's house!"
(They have 6 giant inflatables, lights, graveyards, skeletons, pumpkins, etc)

This morning we walked over to say good morning to their stuff. I pointed Connor out to you in case you couldn't spot him! I'm sure the neighbor's love this little pajama'd boy in their yard every day, along side his crazy bath-robed Mom! ;)

Connor's favorite decoration!
"Fankensine"
This morning he told me,
"Connor sit with Fankensine. Mommy take picture. Cheese!"

Connor's love for Frankenstein motivated me to find another Halloween costume! We currently have two, so I have to decide which one I like best for Trick or Treating! Don't worry--pictures will come soon enough :)

Happy heart

Some days are harder than others & the adventures of single-momhood can sometimes seem overwhelming.

Just when I think God is handing me more than I should have to go through, he turns around and gives me moments like this to help heal my heart.

I love this child more than he will ever know.

Festive crafting

There have been a lot of fellow blog mommies taking on the pumpkin painting idea this year, so we decided that with a mild fever and 2 straight days of rain- It was the best time to try it out!

Although Connor (and most boys, I would assume..) is not much of a 'crafter',
he had fun slopping the paint on his baby pumpkins. It takes a lot out of this OCD Mom to not help, but I am learning to let go. I threw out several encouraging words along with a few "you sure you don't want to paint more than just the top of the pumpkin?!" and "you want to try fun polka dots or stripes instead of smearing the paint until it all turns black?!"... ;)
All the prep and the craft lasted a good 3 minutes, but we had a good time so thats all that matters!



Checking out the finished products while they dry. He was pretty proud!

I had the special treat of getting off work a little early today, so I rushed home to see all the fun crafting Connor did with his Nana while I was away. They did some drawing, painting, and cut & pasting. Here's one of his projects~

(Nana did the cutting while Connor did the glue-sticking)

We hope to carve the pumpkins on Monday.
Let the Halloween festivities continue!

Pumpkin patch flash back

Just for fun...

Here's to show how much my baby changes every year...

Pumpkin patch 2009


Pumpkin patch 2010

Pumpkin patch 2011

Connor & I had a serious talk & he promises he won't grow anymore :)

Pumpkin patch 2011

It's one of my favorite times of the year! We've made it an annual tradition to go to Grace Church's pumpkin patch (so I can take oodles of cute pictures of Connor in the patch). This is the first year Connor is SUPER excited about Halloween, so it made it even more exciting. Matt & I are feeling adventurous & decided to print two templates to attempt elaborate cut outs on our pumpkins this year. Since Matt & I are both indecisive and perfectionists, it took us a good while to find the perfect pumpkins! While we were off to find Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkins, Connor made his rounds trying to lift the biggest pumpkins he could! At one point, he walked up to a big pumpkin and exclaims, "This is the biggest pumpkin I've ever seen!!" It was pretty darn cute! We can't wait to carve our Eeyore and Tigger pumpkins! Connor's gonna love it! :)

Side note: You have no idea how hard it is to get an almost 3 year old to sit still, look at the camera, and smile. The secret behind these smiles were Matt and I shouting out words that Connor finds funny...such as "sweeeeet" and "sugar booger." Whatever works... :)

Disregard my mosquito eyeballs, Matt's hat sunburn, and Connor's look of distraction. We'll take any photo of the three of us that we can get! :)

Cutest little pumpkin ever...

Stay tuned for pumpkin carving photos next week :)