Happy Halloween from Indy and Phoebe

Store-bought costumes aren't my favorite way to go, but Chad happened upon an Indiana Jones costume at Goodwill one day back in September. Perfect fit for Trevi. It was meant to be, right? And Clara declared months ago that she wanted to be something pretty, instead of something "weird" this year, so that narrowed the field for her a bit. We found a Greek Goddess costume online (definitely pretty), and Clara spent a good couple of hours researching goddesses to decide which one, specifically, she wanted to be. So, I'd like you to meet Mr. Indiana Jones, and Phoebe, Goddess of Intellect:
Close-up of Indy's five o'clock shadow and chest hair (heh heh):We had our usual fun-filled night of trick-or-treating and candy sorting with friends who live around the corner, followed by some brainstorming about next year's costumes.....

The Great Pumpkin

We have our regular-sized pumpkins, this year:
But we also have Jumbo. This bad boy is related to some of the giant, award-winning Half Moon Bay pumpkins.
Jumbo has some serious guts:
And ENORMOUS seeds (note reg-sized seed for comparison):
Last year's Giants pumpkin was fruitnapped during the night, but hopefully Jumbo is too heavy for your average teenage hooligan to hoist. We'll see....

Corny

When we found out that the really big and awesome local corn maze was going to cost us forty bucks to walk through, we opted for the cheap and cheesy local corn maze. Cheap and cheesy was actually just the ticket, though. We got in lots of "Children of the Corn" jokes, while Clara pretended to be lost, Chad pretended to be a scarecrow, and Trevor, miraculously, and just in the nick of time, overcame his paralyzing fear of weeds.Bring it on, Halloween! We're ready!

Invasion?

I don't know what this army of Lego guys is up to, but I'm going to keep an eye on them....

Boo!

Our neighborhood has been hit by the annoying, chain-letterish craze of "Booing". The doorbell rings one night, and you open the door to find that no one is there. There is, however, a bucket of Halloween goodies on your doormat, and a note explaining that you've been "Booed". So, you have to make a Target run to buy a bunch of Halloween junk, and then you go and Boo a couple of your neighbors who haven't yet had the pleasure. Lucky for me, Clara loves this kind of thing, so she took care of organizing the Boo baskets. Then we did the doorbell ditch routine, which was actually kind of fun and giggly. Think I'll try it some night without the Boo baskets, just for kicks.

Half Cat

Trevor has long maintained that he is half cat. Some days I think he may be right.

Lip Sniffer

Clara shares my lip balm addiction, but she has taken hers to a new level. Upon application, and randomly thereafter, she curls up her lip to smell the lip balm. Don't know if we'd call this a tic, a fidget, or a sign that the girl is underfed/suffering from a beeswax and eucalyptus deficiency. Whatever the case, she agreed to be photographed in this attractive lip-sniffing pose.

Fun! Fun! It's Homework Time with Trevor!

I think my body language about says it all.

Canadian Thanksgiving!

Being Canadian comes in extremely handy when you really love pumpkin pie. Do they celebrate Thanksgiving (or any other pie holidays) in any other countries with which I can become affiliated?

Also took this opportunity to make the children pose for some cute kid shots. One of Trevor's two front teeth is showing signs of looseness, so I'm thinking his smile is going to be changing dramatically in the near future.

The Furious Narwhals

I love, love, LOVE the name of Trevor's soccer team this year. The boys themselves came up with, "The Furious Narwhals." Awesome. The woman who painted the team banner said it was a challenge to make the narwhal look "furious", since they tend to be peaceful creatures..... :)

Russian River Getaway

Since we never did celebrate our anniversary this year (aside from buying toilets), Chad and I decided to slip away for a night out and a day of canoeing up in Guerneville, while the kids hung out with Grammy and Grampy (Thanks, G&G!). Cue the obligatory Golden Gate Bridge shot: We stayed at a funny little place that didn't exactly, um, share our decorating taste.............. but the place was comfy and the continental breakfast was fab. Give me a good, no-extra-charge breakfast and I'm happy.

Our canoeing day was perfect. Gorgeous, sunny, warm, peaceful. We were practically the only people on the river, except for a few inept paddlers we flew by, allowing us to laugh and feel superior. :) Don't we look pleased with ourselves here?
Batteries officially recharged.