Happy Halloween

(Click on the picture to make it larger).

Thursday we went out trick-or-treating for Beggar's Night. Cade really got into it this year and went for the full two hours...he was definitely in the zone. He would go up to the door by himself and sometimes say trick-or-treat, sometimes not, sometimes say thank you, sometimes not. Des Moines and the surrounding communities have a tradition of telling a joke before you can get the candy, but I figured that he is still young enough that he could get away with not doing it. But several houses asked him if he had a joke and he just looked at them like, "Huh?" and then I'd have to yell from the sidewalk that we didn't get into that yet. Come on people, he's 3, just give him the candy! ; ) Brecken was a trooper riding around in the wagon, trying to eat leaves off the floor of it and snacking on Puffs that our neighbors had gotten as a special treat for her. We saw some of their friends from Sue's, neighbor friends, went to Sue's and even got to see JuJu and LoLo when they came over after their trick-or-treating! I heard one of the dad's taking his kids around say, "Trick-or-Beer," and thought, "well there's a concept!" ; )

It's hard to explain the Beggar's Night/Halloween thing to little ones. The kids have Halloween shirts and I wanted them to wear them on Friday to get one last use out of them and Cade, with his biggest eyes, says, "Is it Halloween again?" Um yeah, actually it is Halloween today, but not the trick-or-treat Halloween. So confusing!

Friday I took the kids downtown for Cade's ear doc appointment. Barack Obama was speaking down there and on our way out, we could hear him from the parking garage! I wish we would have went. What a cool experience it would have been to put in the kids' scrapbooks if he ends up becoming our next president. Cade calls him "Rock Omabama."

At the doctor's appointment, we found out that Cade will be getting tubes put back in his ears and set that up for this Thursday. He has a lot of fluid in there and it is affecting his hearing. So that's why he says, "What?" and "Huh?" all the time. So hopefully the tubes will correct the hearing problem, but unfortunately I don't think they are going to do much for the listening problem!

Saturday night we got to babysit our nieces/cousins Julia and Lauren and they even got to stay overnight! Cade was pumped because they both got to sleep in his room. Julia on the top bunk and Lauren on Cade's "Thomas bed" on the floor. They were so wound up, playing tent, jumping on the couch, eating treats, playing games that they did not settle down and go to bed until 11:45 (old time)! Anne and Ryan went to a costume party dressed as Miami Ink, which involved mesh-like shirts that make you look like you are covered in tattoos...I wish I had a picture to share, as it was pretty funny.

The rest of the weekend involved working around the house (seems to be a common theme). Jim did a bunch of yard work and put things in the shed for the winter. The weather was unbelievably nice for November in Iowa. Our neighbor was putting his Christmas lights up! Brecken and I ran to Target and got Cade a new car set...we needed to get her infant carrier out of my car and then switch the rest of them around...it's complicated figuring out what type of seat they are supposed to sit in, what direction it's supposed to be facing, and when they can switch! I guess the one I picked out for Cade wasn't so easy to put in our truck...Jim almost lost a thumb in the process, or so you would have thought...it only bled a little though. ; )