Naptime Monologues: Busy busy...Boo!

My birthday, every year, seems to be the start of the "holiday season" for me. A week after my birthday is X-man's birthday, 4 days later is Halloween, 3ish weeks later, Thanksgiving and then Christmas. I love that it gets the season moving because I love Christmas and everything that goes with it, but the problem is...I am already exhausted! Boy are we having fun, though! :)

Halloween was a fantastic success. Probably one of my top 5 favorite evenings with my little family! Last year was a big bummer because X-man ended up being off-kilter with his naps and slept too late in the day and then we could hardly drag him out of bed to get dressed up and he cried through all 3 houses we went trick-or-treating at. Gokey did great, but he was only 6 months old and didn't know what in the heck was going on. This year, both of them managed to pick out their own costumes, which came as a surprise to me. As soon as the Halloween garb was on display in stores (sometime around July...Haha), X-man just knew he had to be Iron Man. This kind of baffled me because I am not sure he even knows Iron Man, but whatever...it was cute that he was so excited. I put off buying the costume, however, because I knew he would grow and I didn't want him to be out of the costume by the time he would be donning it. EVERY time he came across that costume in the next 6 weeks, though, I had to battle to leave the store without it. Gokey went shopping with me on a weekend alone one day and I ended up finding some costumes, so I started pulling some out and asking him if he approved...it was more to have conversation, as he was my only company. I really didn't think he would answer. However, upon pulling out a dragon costume first he adamantly refused with a, "NO." He really liked the monkey holding the banana, so I held onto that one as I pulled out a dog, giraffe and bee, all of which he thought were rather boring as he decided to play with a broken hanger under one of the racks. It was then that I found the shark...I almost put it back because I figured he wouldn't even know what a shark was, but suddenly heard him panting beneath me and peered down to find him reaching up in excitement. I had him try the top on in the store and took him to a mirror where he giggled and admired his new look. A week or two later, I finally took X-man to get his costume and as we stood in the aisle and I debated on sizes, the little man suddenly began pleading that we take the package he grasped in his grubby little hand home. I seized it from him and found that he had dropped Iron Man like a bad habit and now wanted to join the likes of Jack Sparrow and Captain Hook. It was official...we had ourselves a Shark and a Pirate!

Pickled Frogs...mmmmm :)

Fast forward to the big night and we had two riled little boys! Nana came over for the festivities as the Devilish gal we all know she is and brought with her, "pickled frogs" and rice-crispie snakes. As soon as dinner was over, X-man was bouncing off of the walls and I finally gave him the go-ahead to get arrrrghed up! He had a very hard time sitting still for the process and we did struggle with hook etiquette as it was the perfect size to fit around Gokey's neck and yank him across the room, but he was finally transformed into our polite little pirate. Gokey was a little easier as I'm not sure he really understood what he was in for, but as I pulled the little shark head over the top of his little head, he suddenly protested and ripped it off. I pulled it back on and explained to him he had to be a shark and took him into the bathroom to see himself in all of his toothy glory. He must have liked what he saw because he never touched it for the rest of the night. Lastly came Dad's costume. Earlier in the day, J had pondered about dressing up a little to get the boys excited. I jokingly said, "we have a pirate and a shark...you should be the plank." He quickly agreed. So, we tied him up with a cedar plank on his back and we had one super-cool trio!

Our fierce little duo...

We had some very quick pictures on the front porch and then off we went. I was so surprised at Gokey's enthusiasm and X-man could hardly contain himself. We got to our first house and big brother performed flawlessly, saying, "trick or treat," as directed and, "thank you," after the goods had been gathered. It was Gokey that threw me for a loop...upon hearing his brother's recitations, he chimed in, "tick er teet," patiently waited for his loot and immediately followed up with an adorable, "tankoo," which drew lots of ooohs and aaahhhs from door-answerers. We only visited 5 or 6 houses, but every step was a blast and it was a bit of a magical evening. Despite the few houses we raided, they came home with quite the booty. They each blissfully slurped down a sucker (the one piece of candy they each chose from their loot) and then had a much needed bath. We found there was no amount of scrubbing that would remove X-man's expertly applied mustache, so he went to bed clean, but a little manlier than he had awakened that day.