After going on the search for the Great Pumpkin, of course we had to carve it. I've never been a big fan of cleaning out the pumpkin and sharp knives still kinda scare me, so Matthew was gracious enough to do both the cleaning and the carving while I took photos. He even baked the seeds for me (but not for Benji due to the choking hazard).
As for Halloween itself, Matthew taught Benji about the mechanics of trick-or-treat before I got home from work but it really looked more like the previous Halloween where he just put stuff in containers and back out again. With a bit more practice he started to get the hang of saying "trick-or-treat". So, it was off to visit the neighbors. Since he didn't fully grasp the concept of Halloween, Benji was the slowest trick-or-treater ever. We only made it down our block and back again before it started getting cold and dark. But Benji was happy as a clam with that. We strolled leisurely from house to house, with Benji reading the house numbers of every neighbor along the way. And for those that had stones in the landscaping, Benji was way more interested in trying to take their rocks than their candy. When we got back to our house, Benji went trick-or-treating at Daddy's door, but then he didn't want to go back in the house. So, he ran in wild circles in our driveway for a while. Imagine how funny it must have looked to have this toddler in an elephant costume doing laps of the driveway!
Benji got a big kick out of helping Daddy to clean the pumpkin. He wanted to see everything that was going on and climbed up on a chair to help scoop out pumpkin guts. Thankfully he was pretty patient in sitting on Mommy's lap during the actual carving so we didn't have any mishaps with the knife.
After Daddy finished carving, Benji wandered into the family room and found the plastic knife that goes with his fake fruit and vegetable set. He had decided he needed to carve the pumpkin too!
What a helpful young lad!
For the second year we dressed Benji as Dumbo again. Most of the costume fit pretty well, although the hood didn't like to stay up (and bobby pins weren't as helpful as I would have liked).
A week after Halloween Benji's park district class had their Halloween party so Benji got to be an elephant again. I think in this picture he's decorating his treat bag with stickers — aahh how we love stickers!
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
