Man, I should work as a sheep in a pumpkin patch petting zoo: I sure know how to get fleeced! ;-p Actually I had a ball taking the lads to nearby Spina Farms Sunday while Margot was in class. We rode the little train, climbed aboard ponies, and jostled around in a hay wagon with our pals the Wiggii. Sure, the proprietors know how to soak you for a few bucks, but it sure buys a lot of tot-delight.
Here’s a little gallery from the proceedings, plus a couple of clips:
The boys have had a bat-tastic week: Nanny Yvonne bestowed these super-fun bat shirts on Finny & Henry the other day, and at “Bats at the Library” in SF, our pal Reen set them up with new wing’d amigos “Leobat” & “Olliebat”! (<--seen here adorning the boys' heads) Thanks so much, guys!
Carving pumpkins just wasn’t at the top of my & Margot’s to-do lists this year, but Finn could hardly have been more interested. He kept brining up the subject, even grumping loudly that we were trying to get off the hook for doing it. Last night he was in a fog following a long car ride, but when Mom-O said we could do some carving, he immediately re-energized & ran to get his smock.
Here’s the amazing part: A kid who, to my chagrin, can barely draw a straight line walked right up to his pumpkin, grabbed a marker, and drew a perfect, complex eye (a circle with a pupil mounted on one side). Oh man, I thought, he’s gonna get good at drawing after all!! Ah, but pride goeth: right afterwards he said “Now I’m gonna draw a second eye!,” then drew a tiny circle, after which he rendered the “nose” as a series of abstract lines. But still… it’s a start & I’ll take it!
Here are just a few pics:
The boys had a ball joining a phalanx of little pals in picking apples & running around Moss Landing yesterday. Here’s a little gallery, which for fun you can compare to last year’s somewhat drier outing to the same orchard. (Henry looks so much older now!)
Another year, another successful candy haul! Swashbuckling Blackbeard & Bob the Builder looked great in their duds, and of course they’re really gotten into craving the sweets. In this little gallery, you can see Henry even (jokingly) trying to eat a candy wrapper!
Following trick-or-treating, and while Margot dispensed candy to 400+ (!) kids, I took the job of winding down our two sugar-addled amigos. After they caught me humming Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” they demanded to hear the real song, after which I hipped them to a video of 1500 Filipino prisoners doing the Thriller dance. I think it’s safe to say they enjoyed it:
(Apparently I went as Scooby Doo for Halloween, given my goofy giggling during this clip. ;-))
Another Halloween has come and gone, so before it’s too far gone, here are a couple of pics of the guys from preschool yesterday. They got to wear their costumes and have a little parade. John and I took them out for trick-or-treating in the evening, and they both absolutely loved it! Finny asked if he could put his costume back on today because it would be Halloween again, and the first words out of Henry’s mouth upon waking this morning were “I want candy!” Uh oh!
As Beldar Conehead would say, “We will honor your Halloween ritual by paying homage to the symbolic vegetable orb!” 🙂
We’ve had fun taking the lads to the pumpkin patch with their Pasitos amigos, and then over to Casa de Wiggin for their first pumpkin carving. Check it out!
Our picture-taking time has been a bit limited lately, but we’ve gathered together some good odds & ends into a little gallery (HTML). And check out Finn making a literal “holy cow”!
Like a good zombie, our Halloween pix just won’t stay buried. 🙂
We’ve uploaded just a handful of photos (HTML) plus a little video showing our trip to the huge pumpkin patch at nearby Uesugi Farms. Note Finnbeard trying to master how to “glower,” later turning Henry’s felt candy bucket into a makeshift fez.
Courtesy of our neighbors Scott and Karen, who set up a Halloween photobooth on their front porch for all the trick-or-treaters. The guys were already coming down from their treat-induced sugar high!
Here’s a fun shot of our G-man dressed up in his Halloween costume. He makes a handsome little fireman, doesn’t he?
Finny is trying really hard to be a “bad pirate” but darn it, he’s too cute to be a believable scallywag! Â Especially when “Arrrr!” is pronounced “Owww!” Â (click each photo for a larger version)
[Update from playgroup: Mom Ariel Kurtze reports, “”We had a very cute pirate at playgroup this morning! And a very sharing one too, he let Sabrina play with his scimitar :)” –J.]
We’ve had a great time celebrating Halloween with the boys this year. On Friday, we met up with a bunch of the parents and tots in my mom’s group for a group photo/costume appreciation party, and then we all headed up to Lincoln Ave. for the yearly costume parade and trick-or-treats at the local shops. Dad-o joined in the fun this year, and escorted San Jose’s smallest but most earnest luchador while I carried our little lion Henry around in the sling.
This evening Dad-o took Finny around to the neighbors’ houses for some trick-or-treating while Henry and I stayed home and started doling out candy to the early bird ghosts and goblins. Then John and Finny manned the front steps to hand out candy to the hordes of kids coming down our block while I got Henry to sleep. Then we swapped and I doled out candy in my Lucy Ricardo costume while a super-pooped Finny chose to bypass his nightly bath and bottle in favor of just getting quickly into bed. Once both guys were down, we handed out the rest of our candy, ordered a pizza, and collapsed on the couch! We counted over 300 trick-or-treaters, and only have about 3 pieces of candy left in the cauldron.
Here’s a little gallery (HTML) of Halloween pics and a few other assorted shots from recent days, including a visit from MrsW (“Hoot’s mama!”), provider of quality luchador-wear.
[Super Mega Bonus Edition: It’s fun to see pix of Finn at Halloween just a year ago (HTML), as well as to see a clip of his penguin-clad toddling! –J.]
When it rains, it pours… gourds, that is.
Margot learned of another great pumpkin patch in our vicinity, so yesterday we packed up the Ocho & headed south. Finn, who’s now officially a huge fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, got a kick out of the “leetle train!!” (particularly the water tower) and the random forklift that kept passing by. Henry was resplendent in pumpkin paraphernalia (check out the stem!), and Finn loved his “Boo shirt.” Here’s our gallery (HTML).
While Grandma Nack was here this week, we visited a local pumpkin patch with the boys. Henry was asleep for most of it, but at least he was dressed festively in his orange hat :D. Finn, on the other hand, was quite alert, and really enjoyed the small petting zoo that was set up at the patch. He was pretty taken with the turkeys, goats, piglets, and bunny rabbits. Here is a little gallery (HTML) of the afternoon’s proceedings. We ended up with four pumpkins, two large and two tiny, to be our family doppel-gourds on the front porch.
[Just for fun, here’s the gallery from last year’s visit. What a tiny Finnster we had! –J.]
We refer to our friend Maria as “Maria-upon-Hallmark” due to her employer (and to distinguish her from my boss Maria). As you might imagine, Maria (-upon-Hallmark) is a master card-sender, and she recently sent Finn a Candy Corn-infused greeting. I snapped a few frames of him opening it (HTML), while Margot captured him trying to feed it to me (one of his new tricks). A careful observer can see how much gnawing he’d done by that point. 🙂
Meanwhile Mom captured our flightless-but-cute buddy going on his very own March of the Penguin on Halloween:
Today marks Finn’s first Halloween! Though he’s too young for candy, he’s definitely up for sporting a cute penguin costume and being strolled around town by his parents. All the shops along our neighborhood’s main street take part in a big Halloween trick-or-treat event, so we got Finn suited up and ready to show off. Margot strolled him down to Lincoln Ave., where they were met by at least a few thousand parents and their costumed children.
The orange Bob made a perfect penguinmobile, and they wove their way through sidewalks choked with pirates, Elmos, ladybugs, princesses, monkeys, lions, tigers, and bears–oh my! (There were even a couple of Dorothys and Scarecrows.) Our Finny was the only penguin on parade and got many compliments on his soft, fuzzy outfit. Margot and Finn ran into our friends Mira & Anja (dressed as a strawberry), and Heidi & Liam (a sock monkey). Here are some pics (HTML) from the day.
Soon we’ll be facing the onslaught of trick-or-treaters that descend on our neighborhood every year. We’re stocked with 400 pieces of candy, so hopefully no one will go home empty-handed!
We took Finn out to a local pumpkin patch this weekend, to see what he’d think of all the enormous orange gourds amidst the hay bales. Since he’d just awoken from a nap (to coordinate our outing with our neighbors Long, Suzanne, and their 8-week old daughter Madison), he was pretty spaced out most of the time.
Check out the photo gallery (HTML) and you’ll see that he certainly gave Fat Albert a run for his money. If he could speak, he would definitely have said “Hay hay hay!,” while he tried to poke handfuls of the stuff into his mouth. And having experimented unsuccessfully with eating a lone Cheerio the other day, Finn decided to cut out the middleman, eating whole grains right off the sheaf. John says our little hayseed is really going against the grain (ba-dum, tssch!).