Fall Fun!

Halloween and the related festivities has come and gone, but I'm still catching up on blog posts, so bear with us as we capture the fun of the holiday nearly two weeks too late.
Oh well.
Someday I'll be all caught up and the blogs will be current.
Until then, well, you get what you get.

In October, we enjoyed the un-seasonably warm weather and took advantage of Collin's growing sense of anticipation and excitement for coming events to celebrate Halloween. We carved pumpkins, traveled out to Afton Apple Orchard with friends and toured many a Halloween stop- the Children's Museum, The Zoo Boo, and trick or treating in our neighborhood.


Halloween this year was our first taste of Collin's sense of pure joy about the unbelievable nature of holidays. Really, to a toddler, holidays are sort of like the equivalent of someone telling an adult that on any given day, if you just ask, or wake up, or say the magic words $5000.00 will land in your lap. If that were true I'd be down right giddy. And, so it is will toddlers when they first figure out the magic of these types of holidays- Halloween, Christmas, Easter.

And boy was he giddy after getting the drift about the events at hand. Our first Halloween event was the museum, and he quickly caught on that those magic words yielded some kind of fantastic surprise. Thankfully, the museum leaned away from candy (which was great, because we still don't give Collin candy. He's probably had less than 10 M&Ms total in his little life) and gave the kids fun tatoos, stickers, stamps and other trinkets. Two more Halloween parties followed suit and each day Collin got more and more excited to don his elephant costume and Trick or Treat.
This Halloween was Owen's first, and it was entirely different for him, but nearly as exciting for me. Its so fun to dress up babies and parade them around! He seemed to like it as well too, and was maybe the world's cutest monkey. I could barely stand it and I plastered his cheecks with kisses all through the boo zoo. I mean seriously, have you seen this face?  Owen has always carried his own kind of pace. He's pretty game to play along with whatever we do as long as it doesn't intercede with precious naptime. I'm pretty sure he'd be fine even if I pushed through nap time, but my own sanity concerns for his sleep always keep us to our schedule.

Halloween wasn't really any different, but having a big brother to look up to made for some excellent people-watching on Owen's part. It's really amazing how they are so alike yet so different, and how having an older brother entirely impacts who Owen really is.

Owen watches Collin, like a little hawk. Patiently observing the world around Collin, looking for the littlest cues of approval, happiness, and at the other end of the spectrum, moments of fear and anxiety to relay when to be scared or worried. On Halloween Owen looked at Collin as though he was swimming among a sea of creatures- all unknown, all potential dangers. Collin, realizing these costumes were all in good fun, smiled widely the first time he saw a character he recognized- "A gorilla, momma! It's a gorilla!" and at the same time, I was able to almost see the little wheels in Owen's brain turn, capture for a moment Collin's smile, and relax into a state of happiness. Owen, all in a few seconds discerned that this setting was okay because for the most part, Collin was happy.

Those kind of moments are so amazing as parents. I got to actually see that happen. Its like a little miracle. I don't know how else to explain it. Seriously, seeing the bonds of brotherhood form before your very eyes is amazing.

 All day Owen continued along this path. Smile, check with Collin, continue to smile. It was so adorable. I love that his first Halloween was nestled somewhere between the comfort of my arms and his brother's warm encouragement.

Halloween also tends to bring out the very large child in Drew as well (who if any of you have forgotten has a sweet tooth that draws to Halloween like an unescapable centrifical force, which means I get a brief taste of what it would be like to have three kids. I think Drew was just as excited as the boys were to go trick of treating and he took to carving pumpkins and prepping for roasted pumpkin seeds (which magically dissappeared in something like four days!) This year we carved the boys their own pumpkins, each with their name and Collin added his hands, and lately he's been all about tracing his hands. Collin tried out carving, hand over hand with Drew, but eventually decided it would be more fun to ride his tractor around with a pumpkin in the trailer.

So, Halloween rounded out nicely to be a pretty spectacular holiday filled with so many smiles by the end of the weekend my cheeks hurt. As one of the last nice weekends of the year (and by nice I mean, a no jacket nearly 70 and sunny weekend) it painted a perfect picture of fall in my memory.

It may be the first Halloween Collin ever remembers, and for Owen, it represents the first of many many more fantastic holidays, and for our little family, 2011 has been filled with an adorable zoo of animals, and our family may sometimes feel like a zoo, but we wouldn't have it any other way. These days are so very precious. And crazy. And fun. And, well, they're perfect.