Well Halloween isn’t officially here yet but we have had plenty of time for Kate to wear her costume and enjoy the season! There have been Halloween parties, a trip to the pumpkin patch, trick-or-treating at a local zoo. This year she is a zebra! It worked out really well because I again failed to plan ahead so a week ago I was panicking slightly. I found a Old Navy zebra costume on craig’s list for $10 so I drove out to pick it up. It’s perfect! It’s warm, it’s a two-piece so it’s not hard to wrestle on and off, and it’s something she recognizes. She loves it! After I got it she kept asking to put the zebra on. I told her offhand that zebras run fast so every time she put the costume on she’d run around the house saying, “Running!” Even at one of the halloween parties, all the other kids were on the floor playing with toys and there’s my kiddo doing laps around the room giggling. I had to take off the top half because she was getting all sweaty.

I am a horrible mom and as of yet have no costume for Ember. I almost bought something, but then hesitated; a friend was going to loan a costume but it’s not the right size; now I think I’ll just pull out Kate’s first year costume – a lamb – and put her in that. I keep hoping I find something cheap.

Kate is in love with pumpkins. While she was here visiting my mom took Kate for walks around the neighorhood, pointing out all the pumpkins on porches. So now every car ride Kate’s saying, “Punkin! Punkin! ‘Nudder punkin!!” At the pumpkin patch when she got to pick one and keep it she cried when I tried putting it in the car without her, so she ended up carrying it in her lap the whole way home. She is very proud of her pumpkins.

Today I stopped and bought a large pumpkin for carving. During Ember’s nap Kate and I set to work. Kate “helped” – which is to say she kept trying to stick her spoon in the pumpkin at the same time I was scooping out pumpkin guts, so not so helpful at all. I had two bins to separate out all of the seeds from the squishy bits and I tried to get her interested in helping me pick out seeds. Which worked for all of 5 seconds until I she happily dumped the entire bin of seeds in with the bowl with the squishy bits. But that’s okay, I really wanted to do that twice.

When I was done carving a smile into the pumpkin, and she was done fitting the triangle eyes and nose back in the holes like it was a slimy orange shape-sorter I got her to sit with it for a picture. As I’m taking a pic she turns the pumpkin around, tilts it back to stare at its face, then leans down to hug it. “Hug punkin!” she said, “Awwww cute.” Ha!

So our front porch now has a jack-o-lantern! I was starting to think that we might actually get trick-or-treaters this year…. then I saw that we have a hurricane headed for us. Sweet, another Halloween of no power. Awesome. (That’s sarcasm, in case you are confused.)