::traditions, cookies, costumes::

Max and I have made frosted halloween sugar cookies for the last two years. For some reason he calls them christmas cookies. It doesn't make much sense to me, but that's my Max.
It's nice to have a tradition. Honestly it wasn't really a tradition until we did it last year. Once we had done it two years in a row I thought we needed to stick with it. Especially because Max really enjoys it. I posted about last year's cookie making here if you care to know more.
Kris and Max both were asking me all month when we were going to make the cookies. It's kind of a big job, doing it with Max, so I ended up kind of putting it off for a while. Plus we've been trying to eat very healthily, and I knew if there were delicious sugar cookies in the house I would gobble them all up.
So anyway, we didn't actually make them until halloween itself.

And that was a bit of a busy day. Max had school in the morning. Then we went trick or treating up and down our street (we live on a street with a lot of retail shops, and they were all giving out candy) and then we were supposed to carve our pumpkins and do a little more trick or treating and go to a party. Whew. Yikes.

So somehow we squeezed the cookies into our day. And we squeezed the cookie dough too.


Max was much more helpful than he's been the last couple of years, which was fun. But he kept trying to lick stuff, and kept sticking his hands in his mouth. I made him go and wash his hands every time. He probably ended up doing it about 20 times.

Can you see the flour on his nose? That's probably from smelling the cookie dough.

We made a super big mess of the kitchen. It was fun. And it's especially fun to lick the beaters, right? Isn't that what makes it all worth it?



Can you see the frosting on his nose now? Do you think he might have been smelling it? Hmmm....

After we cooked all the cookies it was time to go out trick or treating. Melissa and Grant came along with us.
Here's Max with his cute trick or treat bag Grandma made for him.

We went up and down the street and Max had a great time. It took him quite a while to actually say trick or treat though. He decided he was going to be shy for a while and wouldn't say a thing. I finally had to be a mean mom and tell him I was going to take him home if he couldn't shape up. He started talking. I was glad. It's kind of embarrassing to have a kid that big that won't even say thank you when somebody gives him a bunch of candy!

At the delicious little bakery at the end of the street they were giving out gingerbread pumpkin cookies. Mmmmm.


He got tons and tons of candy.
Grant enjoyed coming along and wearing his costume, even though he didn't get any goodies. Soon enough.


We got home and frosted the cookies. Max helped me to decorate them.
Here he is trying out the first one.



Approval, yay!

Here are some of the great pumpkin faces he made for me on the cookies.

Sad face (being enjoyed)

Mad face (sideways on the pumpkin) this one is a little hard to see.

This one is my favorite. I think it's so cute.

In the middle there is a happy face. I think it was his favorite. He likes happy faces.

During all of this action, Kris was at work. He did a rotation in the pediatric medicine clinic in the morning and had emergency care in the afternoon. He dressed up in an awesome costume.

Jimi Hendrix! You probably can't see it, but he photoshopped himself up a hospital name badge with Jimi's picture and name on it. He looked great. Actually, everybody in the pediatric dental clinic dressed up great. BUT he was the only one dressed up down in peds medicine. He said it was a little embarrassing. There he was walking around in a big wig with a plastic guitar and everybody else was just in scrubs. It makes me laugh.

After Kris got home he and I were totally exhausted. So we ended up skipping the party (which was too bad) and put off pumpkin carving. Then we took Max to trick or treat at a couple of our friends houses that were close. Then we put him to bed. He was a little sugared up, so it was nice to put him to bed.

So there you go. Some cookies, a little tradition and some fun costumes. That was our halloween!

::a walk & a parade::

So I know that it's past halloween now, and seeing a whole bunch of posts about it is a little bit anticlimactic, but oh well. It's how I do things.

So at the end of the week on an afternoon Max's school held a halloween parade. We live relatively close to his school, a little more than a mile away. So we often walk there. We walked to the parade, and met our friends Melissa and Grant halfway there so they could enjoy the festivities too.

And since I had the camera with me I took advantage. The leaves are so pretty right now.







Here's my usual view when walking to school. Max in the stroller, covered with a snuggly blanket.

He usually rides when we walk to school. But sometimes when we're not under time constraints he walks. He's just not much of a fast walker.

And we met Melissa and Grant. It was a really nice day.

A nice day to hang out with good friends.

And there we were at the school. The kids were running around, crazy with enthusiasm and excitement.

Max was inspired by our silly halloween movie and decided to be a wizard for the remaining festivities, instead of a giraffe. I think I already said that before. Anyway, because of the movie he had the impression that wizards went around with their hoods covering their faces. Of course that isn't true, but because of the movie now he doesn't believe me. Mostly I'm afraid he's just going to run into something and hurt himself. But I'm always worried about that.



Grant was fascinated by all the kids running around. He loves to watch Max, and the additional kids were just as fun.

He's so cute.

We finally all got organized and stomped/ran/noodled around the block. Max yelled "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" at the top of his lungs most of the way.
There were lots of fun costumes, but one of my favorites was this cute little snake.

Pretty amazing costume.

I tried to talk Max into wearing his pirate beard, or a wizard hat or something else fun. But he's not really into any of that stuff, so he was just the wizard with a robot sweatshirt. Whatever makes him happy.

We ended the fun with a few doughnut holes, or "munchkins" which is what they call them out here. Then we walked home. It was a good day.

::something small::

(maybe I should've called this post something TALL)
So I don't have the Halloween stuff all ready yet, but soon. In the meantime, check this out.

Here's Max in October of 2006, right after Kathy made him his "wizard" costume. (I actually had conceived of it more as like a hobbit costume, but whatever works.)

(this is at our old house in Kansas City--we miss that yard now that Max is big enough to want to play outside a lot.)

Now here's Max in the wizard costume on friday. It's amazing how much he's grown, isn't it? To me he really looks the same, but just kind of stretched.

It just blew my mind when I saw these pictures together. It's funny to see real evidence of how much he's grown.

I'm sure in another two years it won't fit at all. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

::carved::

We were actually able to get around to carving our pumpkins today.  Amazingly.  Kris and I were both pretty tired, but we figured Max didn't deserve to get short changed just because he wears us out. So we did it.
Although after the first 10 minutes Max spend his time running away instead of helping us carve, somehow his guy turned out just like he wanted.  And although he spent the last 10 minutes inside the house in time out he seemed to enjoy the experience.
We got heckled outside for being a day late on our carving, but we didn't care. At least we did it.

He loved his guy. He kind of forgot how carving is supposed to work, so when I cut into the pumpkin he got a little concerned. But it all ended up ok. He wanted a "happy one with circle eyes, a triangle nose and a happy mouth."



He was pleased.

Here's my goofy guy.

And Kris's.


We lit them up inside. We were too wimpy to stand out in the cold.



Hooray for jack-o-lanterns. They are awfully fun and magical.

::happy halloween::

Happy Halloween everybody.  I'll post about our festivities tomorrow.  We didn't get around to carving our pumpkins today, but hopefully that's going to happen tomorrow too.

Max is a wizard here, not a gangster--just so everybody knows. It's a costume Kathy made for him a couple of years ago, and he's never agreed to wear it until now. It's amazing.  He doesn't change his mind that often.
It's all due to our exciting Halloween movie that we made for the party. It inspired him to want to be a wizard. So in tribute to him, please enjoy our silly movie. It's pretty long, so don't start it unless you have 12 minutes to waste!

Max Halloween Movie from Ginna Hendricks on Vimeo.