Happy Halloween!

Alex has become full-on crazy about Halloween. This year we decorated the front of the house with spider webs and a ghost garland. He made two goofy pumpkins. And trick-or-treating was a major highlight.

Dave reminded me that Alex started talking about being a bat for Halloween shortly after last Halloween. That idea stuck, although it evolved a bit. When he started talking about what he wanted to be for Halloween a couple of months ago, it started as a bat, then became a vampire bat, then became a vampire dressed as a bat, and finally he landed on Dracula disguised as a bat. I'm not quite sure where the concept came from, but we ran with it.

Continuing the tradition started last year, Alex and Dave are the costume makers. The bat involved less building than last year's robot, but it definitely had more conceptual kinks to work out. Dave made a great mask that was a bat itself, complete with pointy ears, eyes, and wings. However, Alex thought the mask needed to just be the face of the bat and declared that the wings "didn't make any sense." We waited until the last minute, but, much to Dave's chagrin, the wings had to be cut off.

Alex also became particularly obsessed with the fangs. He really wanted fangs. I really didn't want to have him use plastic fangs. He came up with a creative, if bizarre-looking solution on his own. One day, out of the blue, he sat at his art table and made fangs out of paper. They pointed in different directions and had a purple circle (the mouth?) in between. Ok, but I still wasn't sure how they would get used. But, this was not my project. A few days later I discovered that the fangs had been glued to the front of the bat mask. Problem solved.

His original plan for trick-or-treating was to go door-to-door for ten minutes, then hand out candy for ten minutes, but when the night finally came he was a little more focused on going door-to-door. When we came back to hand out candy, he was excited, but the slow traffic disappointed him. He kept going out to the sidewalk like a carnival barker trying to drum up business. "Candy here!" "You can come here for some candy!" "We have candy!"

I've never been a huge Halloween fan, but this year showed me just how much fun it can be to a kid.

Alex and his silly pumpkins 

Alex being a silly pumpkin

Dracula disguised as a bat

Spooky bat!

The Chicago Marathon

Today is the Chicago Marathon. Many of my running friends are out there, and one of Alex's teachers ran today. So, we made an outing of it and went to watch. (Alex and I also watched the start of the race on tv. He wanted to know who was the fastest so he could pretend to be that person.)

We prepared by making a sign for Alex's teacher. He picked bright pink poster board for high visibility. We got there with plenty of time and watched for a little over an hour. There were lots of people running with Iowa gear on, so Alex made a game of seeing how many shirts he could find, and he yelled "Go, Hawks!" to all of them. He also really liked the costumes, especially the runners dressed as super heroes and Buzz Lightyear. He gave lots of high fives from our spot on the side of the course, which earned him lots of smiles from the runners. Then, best of all, we saw his teacher. There was lots of cheering and hugs!

We were too involved in spectating to take many pictures.

Decorating the sign

Watching the runners

Alex Reads

I knew Alex could read more than he was letting on, and recently he decided to show us. He read Big Dog, Little Dog to Dave the other night. Dave said he thinks Alex even surprised himself with how many of the words he could read. He finally read it to me last night, and it was definitely one of my favorite moments as a parent. Tonight, we got him to read a bit for the camera. I was worried he'd ham it up and be goofy, but he just read for us. Click the link above and enjoy!

Happy 5th Birthday!

Alex turned 5 today. It's kind of hard to fathom. We had a great day, full of lots of love from family and friends. There will be more to come once I get a chance to comb through the 100+ pictures I took today, but I couldn't let the day pass without noting it on the blog.

Happy birthday Alex! Daddy and I love you very much!

With his pals who were able to come to the party

His Jake and the Neverland Pirates cake

Getting ready for the cake moment

Carrot Harvest

After an unsuccessful attempt last year (thanks to neighborhood bunnies), we managed to produce a pot full of carrots this year. The greens looked great, but I was still slightly nervous that there might not be any real carrots. Some were tiny, but we ended up with a decent crop. They were part of Alex's lunch this week.

We loosened the soil and
a little bit of orange came peeking through

Pulling out the first one

Showing off his crop

Seven little carrots

Washing off the dirt

Back to School

Today was the first day back to school for Alex, and it was Visiting Day, so Dave and I both went too. The first three days of this week are short -- just an hour and a half each. Thursday and Friday will be back to a normal schedule (although After School doesn't start until next week), and on those days all the returning kids (14) and the new kids (8) will get to be together. We are very excited to be back with the same teachers and in the same classroom. We'll have both of those things changing next year, but for now, the familiarity is quite helpful.

Ready to go! 

Wanting to talk

 

Climbing as high as he can

 

Sunday with Aunt Laura

Alex and I had a great day with Laura and Brian today. Their church was having a festival, which was lots of fun. Alex loved the bounce house, games, and music. I had to drag him away from the band when it was time to go. He didn't know anyone there, but jumped right in and, after a while, was navigating the activities on his own. It was fun to see him exploring so independently. After a while, his bossy side came out, and he decided to help run some of the games, telling people where to stand and helping with mini-golf. 

Making sure everyone does it right.

Then we spent a couple of hours at Aunt Laura's, chasing rabbits in the back yard, looking for cicadas and acorns, and being a huge helper with back yard tasks. It's days like these that make me really wish we had a yard!

Moving the patio furniture. He insisted on doing it all by himself.

Chasing a rabbit around the woodpile.

Helping with the first bird feeder.

Filling the second bird feeder.

Clearing the weeds.