Happy Halloween!

This is Ben's 2nd Halloween, and while he may still be too young to "get it," that certainly didn't stop me from running out to purchase a costume and planning holiday related activities.

When Tim was growing up his family was pretty conservative with the holiday; he was only allowed to dress up like historical figures (Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, among others) and only allowed to carve crosses into pumpkins and attend church harvest festivals.  We still giggle with his parents every time the topic of "holiday traditions" comes up.  My parents were a little more liberal with us; we could pretty much dress up like whatever we wanted (as long as it wasn't evil/scary) and we carved pumpkins and went trick-or-treating together every year.

Tim and I haven't really discussed how much our family will do or where we will draw the line at "celebrating." We still have a couple of years to decide.

Last weekend we took Ben Mickey Mouse to First Baptist Arlington's fall festival. We kicked things off with a foot-long corn dog dinner, because good nutrition is really important, especially on holidays.

After Ben's Mickey's gourmet meal, we moved on to trunk-or-treat.  He can't say "trick-or-treat" yet, but seemed pleasantly surprised every time someone dropped candy in his pumpkin.  (Tim ate more than half of it after Ben went to bed that night, and he's not even the pregnant one!)

Spitting image of his daddy at the same age!

His ears were a little floppy, but is he seriously not the cutest little Mickey you've ever seen?  The coat tails just made the outfit!

Carving pumpkins is one of my very, very, very favorite traditions.  My parents always made it really fun.  They took us to the pumpkin patch and let us pick our own pumpkins.  Dad always claimed to have found the best one in the whole patch.  Then, while mom dutifully spread newspaper all over the kitchen table, dad would solemnly declare that he had a fantastic idea and his pumpkin would be the most creative.  We took the competition very seriously, and Mom (the photographer/judge) could never quite manage to decide exactly whose was best, which left each of us to confidently declare ourselves the winner.

When Tim and I had only been dating a month, I made asked him to carve pumpkins with me.  My pumpkin was supposed to look like Tim.  See the ears and the spiky hair?

Throwback to 10 years ago! 

Last night, we "carved" pumpkins as a family.  Ben was skeptical.  Perhaps it had something to do with last year's series of events. 

In any case, after Tim cleaned the pumpkin out we just let Ben finger paint on it.  In hindsight, we didn't really even need to gut it.  There's just something kind of necessary about scooping all those slimy seeds out, though. 

Ben wore his jack-o-lantern shirt to Bible Study this morning.  He can kinda-sorta-barely say "pumpkin," (ba-yum?) but he sure does say it with confidence! 

Tonight Ben was in his jammies and in bed by 6:30, just like any other night.  Of course, we had to go outside to say goodnight to the pumpkin first.

I have a good feeling that maybe, just maybe, next year could include some trick-or-treating.  Hey, there are some things you just have to work your way up to.

Happy Halloween!