Our Halloween

Last Halloween we dressed James up as a pumpkin and strolled him around while his cousins trick or treated.  It was festive and fun, cute and babyish, perfect for his first Halloween.

This Halloween season, we practiced trick or treating at Boo at the Zoo and Trunk or Treat at our church.  James has dressed up as Bob the Builder so many times that he now thinks any button down shirt is a Bob costume.  When we show him a picture of himself, he says “Bob?”  Let’s just say by Halloween night, James knew the drill. 

My parents arrived late afternoon.  Feeling sentimental about James and holidays, I decided to get in the Halloween spirit.

First, we opened up a pumpkin to roast the seeds.

James really wanted to help so, after we emptied it out, we let him “help”. {He made this shirt at school.  I thought it was so cute, I had him wear it all day.  Pumpkins on the front explain the green paint in his hair last week, and a handprint spider on the back.}

Papa assisted with a colander as James diligently put “the seeds” in it, just like Mommy does.

With so many limits and restrictions, I like to allow hands-on when I can.  It surprisingly wasn’t messy at all.  Just cute.

Then we played James’ current favorite song The Monster Mash.  Nothing could make me happier than seeing him dance around and laugh.

He gobbled up some dinner, read a book with Papa,

then we put Lynyrd in costume.  Poor Lynyrd.  Different year, same ole’ costume. 

But James liked it so, we kept Sgt. K-9’s costume on for about 10 minutes.

Best pals.

Then I realized it was getting dark, and we needed to trick or treat while I could still take pictures!  Yes, I’ll admit that.

As soon as James saw the red shirt, he said “Bob? Bob? Bob?” and sang the Bob the Builder song “Booob the Bob” about one hundred times.

Daddy got home just in time to finish carving the pumpkin and trick or treat.

This was the moment we had been waiting for all month.

It was James’ first ever real trick or treat.  He stopped by Mr. Potato Head pumpkin, yelled “MEOW” when he saw their cat, and then got his candy.

We visited a haunted house after informing them James is only 19 months despite his size.  That was my nice way of saying, “don’t scare him and ruin our Halloween.”  The witch stopped cackling, and all the pirates were nice to Bob.

They let James choose his own candy from their treasure chest.  Of course he chose a “bop bop” lollipop.  We were all happy that James didn’t leave the house in tears.

His favorite part of the night was pointing out the moon.  He repeatedly stopped to find it, point at it, and tell us it was the moon.

He was just so happy.  And chatty.  About the moon, Bob, candy “cacky”, “bop bops”, Papa, Mammy, marching “mach, mach,” Lynyrd “nyn-ned”, and his latest favorite subject, ambulances “ma-munch”.

We went to quite a few houses.  After a while, once the candy hit the bag, he’d run away to the next house.  Rude little thing!  But we are working on manners.

We headed home, ate some dinner, passed out candy, put James to bed, then watched Dexter.  It was a perfect Halloween.  We originally had other plans, but at the last minute decided to keep the evening low key.  We usually only get to see my parents one holiday a year so, it was so nice to share this with them.  I told Justin several years ago that it was time for the holidays to be about the kids.  Only glitch was, we didn’t have any kids.  I couldn’t be any more thankful for the joy our little Bob brings to our life.