Happy Halloween

Traffic conspired against us, but we made it home in time to do some Trick-or-Treating. Or, as Alex likes to call it, Happy Trick or Treat!

We weren't quite sure what costume Alex would wear tonight. For the last two years he was a monkey. That costume is a bit too small for him, but when we went to the Zoo's Halloween festivities, he wanted to wear it. He and Dave also built a robot costume a month or so ago that we thought would make a great Halloween costume.  They labeled it the XF-17 after a Curious George episode called "Robot Monkey." (I think you can see where this story is going...) So, on the big night, he decided to go full-on George and dress as the Robot Monkey. Even though he regularly took off the robot part of the costume to make it easier to navigate candy collection, he loved being a robot monkey and was a big hit in the neighborhood.

At the start of our night

Trick or Treat!

Robot Monkey

Enjoying the spoils

Big Boy Bed

Alex has graduated out of the toddler bed and into a real big boy bed. He loves it! Of course it is decked out in Toy Story sheets, so we stacked the deck a bit. Now the next project will be wall paper removal and new paint.

Day Trip to Michigan

We had a fun adventure traveling to Michigan today. Our friends Dan and Reva gave us a heads up about a Harvest Festival at an orchard in Union Pier. We made a day of it and spent about an hour hiking in Warren Woods State Park, made a quick stop in Sawyer (where Alex saw the tallest scarecrow I've ever seen -- it was about two stories high and had two pumpkin heads), and then headed to the festival. The festival had apple pizza, apple pie, and homemade ice cream. We had a tractor ride, picked apples and pears, and listened to some fun music, including a jug band. It was a great way to take advantage of this wonderful weather we are having.

Hiking with a stick

In the "cave" made by a fallen tree

Checking out a spider making its web

More fallen trees

Apple picking

Having fun in the apple trees

Tractor ride!

Birthday Party Fun

We had a fun party at the house for Alex's birthday with some of his best buddies: Cecily, Nicholas, and Owen, as well as Owen's sister Maddi. Alex had been asking for a party at Pump It Up for months. We weren't going to go that route, but we were fortunate enough to have a friend who has a reasonably sized bounce house that we could fit in our basement (after moving the couch and coffee table out of the way). Bouncing was a big hit! We also had a book exchange (that did not go as smoothly as I had hoped, which was my fault), and the kids did an art project to make bookmarks, keeping with the book theme. The other theme of the party was Toy Story, which Alex loved, especially the cake.

In the bounce house with Cecily

Even Maddi spent some time in the bounce house

It didn't take long for Nicholas
and Owen to find the trucks.

Busy crafters

Alex made a circus bookmark

Owen even joined in!

The Toy Story cake

Alex was "hiding" while everyone sang

Alex and Cecily enjoying cake

Phase 1 of the book exchange

Happy 4th Birthday Alex!

Hard to believe it, but the little guy is now four years old. Here are a few pictures of today's fun, with more to come. (We recently changed operating systems, and the pictures are giving me some headaches.)

Passing out birthday cupcakes to his classmates.

The happy birthday boy!

More cupcakes. This time with frosting and a candle.

Pets or Pests?

Alex brought home a couple of "friends" from school today: a fly and a spider in bug containers. We also found an ant on the sidewalk as we were leaving school, which he wanted to catch and put into one of the containers. While we were trying to do that, we discovered that the lid came off of the spider's container in Alex's backpack so I had to catch the spider and put it back in. I'm guessing that by now the ant has become dinner for the spider.

I'm not sure how I feel about this new phase of boyhood!

The spider is in the top container, and
the fly is in the bottom.

School Lunches

One of the many changes with the new school is that Alex now brings his lunch. We are having him help with the lunch-making process, and he was really into it tonight. He made a mini bagel sandwich, spending at least five minutes getting just the right amount of cream cheese spread on the bagel and being very particular about how many slices of turkey needed to be on the sandwich (three, for those of you who are curious). He also packed up his container of snap peas and picked out his fruit and his treat. It will be interesting to see how much of this gets eaten tomorrow, but the preparation portion of lunch was a huge success!