A day of 1st's

Halloween this year marked several "first's" in the Leon household- first time any of us had carved pumpkin's, our kid's first halloween costumes, and the first time Mama, Kaleia or Brodie had been trick or treating. So I guess you could say it's the first time we have "celebrated" Halloween!

Pumpkin carving was fun although Young's the one who did most of the work. At the suggestion of a friend we had Kaleia draw the faces on with a crayon and then Young attempted to cut out what she had drawn. Personally, I think they both did a great job. Kaleia's drawings were creative and Young is far more artistic than I am when it comes to cutting, so the combination was a good one. We'll definitely have to remember that one for next year! When I set Brodie down to take pictures of him with his pumpkin, he decided that, jack-o-lantern or not, it was supposed to be eaten (I guess food is food, no matter what the form to this boy!) He had a ball scrapping pumpkin off the lid.

Halloween Costumes 101...Young and I had been talking and decided that Kaleia was finally old enough to go trick or treating(Or should I say, daddy wanted to go and figured that she would enjoy tagging along. Besides, what 4 year old wouldn't jump at the chance to get candy!), so a couple of months ago I asked Kaleia what she would like to dress up as for Halloween. Without even a second thought she quickly said "a giraffe". Now this didn't totally surprise me since she has had a love affair with giraffe's since she was about 1 1/2, but upon suggesting other things to her she affirmed her choice and then said that Brodie was going to be a monkey. I just laughed! So here I am now with only a slight idea of where to get a giraffe costume for a 4 year old. :) After a fair amount of research I realized that the only place I was going to find one for my darling daughter was ebay! Ahh, the dreaded task of finding the right costume amongst all the various listings and then hoping that you don't get out-bid! Because, of course, there were none that were listed that had a "buy it now" price that was anywhere near what I was willing to pay for such a thing! So after watching one or two slip away I finally got brave and entered my bid. It was so ridiculously nerve-racking!!! I was a wreck the entire afternoon that the bid was ending. Young was home to watch the clock slowly time out with me and just kept chuckling in the background! I was rather obsessed about the whole thing, and needless to say, relieved when I received notice that I was the winner! So, with Kaleia's costume safely on it's way we headed to Old Navy in search of Brodie's monkey costume. Well, long story short, his monkey costume was shot down by how cute he looked in the lion costume!

And then there was the trick or treating...After getting the costumes on the kids and taking a few pictures we were ready to head out. (Please note the excitement on Brodie's face in the one picture below.) We decided to start with the cul-de-sac just across from our complex. Kaleia was a bit timid at first, but when she came back down the walk from the first house and realized that she had candy in her bucket she was sold! And so for the next several houses each time she came back to meet me on the curb all I heard was, "Mama, I got more treats!". It was so fun to watch her get excited about it. About half way down the street she started asking, "Where's the Halloween?", which I finally figured out meant, "Where's the Halloween Party?". Thanks to our daughter's love of Charlie Brown specials, she had justed watched Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin and I guess they go trick or treating and then go to a Halloween Party, so of course that's what she expected to do. We finally got to the end of the street and she was asking to go home saying that she was "all done" trick or treating. Knowing that it was still kinda early we asked if she wanted to go to the Halloween party that they were having at our park. She quickly responded with "that would be good", so we headed up that way. Once she had had her fill of games and free popcorn and water we headed home. The kids were both fascinated with all the candy and had fun digging through it all. Brodie didn't actually eat any of it, but he sure did have fun pulling everything out of his bucket! He did attempt to eat a couple of things with their wrappers still on though.
All in all, we had a great day together as a family filled with many happy memories! And because you all know how much I love to take pictures, here's a sampling to take you through our day. Enjoy!