Fall Awesomeness

A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, we decided to make use of our membership to Morton Arboretum and enjoy some walking among the fall leaves at their peak. Of course, when we woke up that morning it was cold and rainy. Did that stop us? Oh, hell no. But we decided that our walk would now be a drive. We swung through Starbucks for coffee and breakfast. Tellingly, as soon as we pulled in, Liam started asking for a "punkin cone, punkin cone." I get the feeling that wasn't the first time he'd been through the Starbucks drive through. Also: that kid ate an entire pumpkin scone. 

 

We were turning the day around. We got to the arboretum and drove around the entire thing. By the time we were finished, so was the rain. We decided to get out and walk after all. We headed straight for the children's garden, which we had entirely to ourselves. Thanks, rain! We stopped at the water globe thingy, a giant marble sphere floating on a thin stream of water that kids can spin: 

 

Then we headed onto the trail. Liam is probably a little too small for most of the climbing equipment there, but since there was no one else there, he had the run of them: 

 

Then, LD got to choose and paint a pumpkin to take home: 

That was a HUGE hit. Then LD invented what was pretty much the best game ever: jumping really high (with a little help from Damian): 

I was there, too: 

Later that day, we went to the pumpkin patch to get the real pumpkin. Liam still seemed stuck on the little ones, so he talked us into this one. He also seemed very interested in every perfect pumpkin without a stem. We finally found what seemed to be the only pumpkin in the place that still had a stem. (It also happened to be beautiful as you can see in the Halloween post.) 

And, of course, we both forgot our cameras. D managed to get a good shot with his phone, though:

Halloweeeeeeeen!

Halloween was so much fun this year. We had a little trouble talking LD into putting on his costume, though. It was a total no go for his school party the Friday before Halloween, but I used my super special mom powers** to get him into it for a trial run on Sunday.

**I bribed him with candy corn.

Also on Sunday, we carved his pumpkin. He said that he wanted a scary pumpkin, not a happy pumpkin, so D drew up a couple of designs and Liam chose the one he wanted. Then it was time to get our hands dirty.

Don't be fooled. He's actually scooping the seeds out of the bowl and putting them back into the pumpkin.

Sunday trial run, eating his hard-won candy corn:

Scary pumpkin, not a happy pumpkin:

By Monday, Halloween, he was totally on to my game and even the promise of candy couldn't get him into his costume. So I pulled out the big guns: I told him he could ride his bike if he put on his costume.

In the costume, but still not sure about this whole thing:

Then he got on the bike, hit the first house, and the whole thing fell into place for him.

He walked up to doors on his own, knocked, said "Trick or Treat," "thank you," and "Happy Halloween" at every house before running back to his bike to pedal to the next. We thought we would hit maybe 2 or 3 houses if we were lucky (and never thought he would actually say anything to strangers), but he completely surprised us.

Also surprising: he doesn't want to eat the candy he got. He only wants candy corn.