loved October

I have been LOVING fall. October was especially awesome. I have been thrillingly in the mood for Halloween ever since I discovered Wesley's most awesome Halloween costume for the year -- a toddling chicken. Just wait. Videos later. I've been in the mood for fall foods, and have made an assortment of delicious meals with apples and squash:

• caramel apples (my first attempt! not a total failure, but not perfect either)
• apple crisp
• chicken with fall vegetables
• my favorite acorn squash recipe with couscous, cranberries, green onions, and walnuts
• a fall salad with butternut squash "fries" and apples
• butternut squash soup
• Italian spaghetti squash with bell peppers

All I need to make it a pumpkin roll (one of my most favorite desserts, even though it isn't chocolate) and it'll be a perfect season!

In the realm of fall adventures, we also took Wesley to a pumpkin patch on Halloween. It was awesome! It was a smidge rainy and pretty muddy, so we wandered around and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We took a hayride (and were intrigued by the ginormous tractor), and we saw (and fed) some barnyard animals. Plus there were lots of pumpkins, many Wesley sized and some Mom or Dad sized. We brought home some fresh farm veggies (I think... they were selling mandarin oranges in their "produce stand," which made zero sense) and a little pumpkin. The best part was the pumpkin cannon! SO COOL. You load a teeny little pumpkin in there and blast it like a mile away. It was really fun. And loud.

Here are some pics:







Pumpkins as far as the eye can see!! I'd never been to a place like this before.


What happens when little Wesleys get tired? They refuse to keep walking, and instead plop down in the mud. So dads carry them.



This is how tall we are!

We also had plenty of Halloween adventures this year. Since his costume was to-die-for cute, I had to schedule as many Halloween parties as was humanely possible for me to show him off. We went to:

• Halloween Spooktacular at Church (where there was not one, but two other chickens, interestingly enough)
• Halloween Party for our Church playgroup
• Halloween trick-or-treat set up at my work
• Halloween Party for our childbirthing class friends
• Halloween video scavenger hunt with the Young Women at Church (where we had to find a stranger willing to let us wrap him in toilet paper like a mummy, we had to fine a gravestone with "Smith" on it, we had to all do the Thriller dance, etc. -- all captured on video)

So, the costume. Resourceful Grandma Gottula found it at a second-hand store last year -- with the tags still on it!! It's Old Navy, and she paid like half of what the tags said. Which is AWESOME. Thanks Grandma for the cute costume. Here's a dress rehearsal image:

I even did a costume for myself! Thanks to Facebook, I was able to post a plea for help and get a reply from a friend who let me borrow a tool belt. My awesome company gave us all hardhats a couple years ago, so the result was Angela the Builder! And her chicken...

At the Church Spooktacular, the Young Women (and I helped) were in charge of a cupcake walk. We had to go decorate in the afternoon then come back for the party. Well, I brought Wesley with me both times, and in the afternoon he picked up one of the cupcake walk "squares" from the floor -- a purple cat. He would not let go! He held on to that thing the entire time we were decorating the room. When we left and I put it down, he cried and cried. As soon as we took our places that night, he again grabbed that purple cat. Luckily, it wasn't integral to the game since people needed to be on pumpkins -- not cats -- to win cupcakes. Just so funny.

He got to be one tired little chicken... so this is what we got at about 7 pm:

You cans see the spiderweb square and you can KIND OF see the purple cat under his head, as a pillow. HAHAHAHA!

Anyway, I had to wait to post this until today since our last Halloween party was yesterday. Our childbirthing class friends put on a real celebration! There was cider and cornbread and chili and caramel apples and Halloween cupcakes. And, games for the little ones!

All seven of us were there, which was awesome. At least 3 of us were sick last year. So we have: Noah (fireman), Catie (white princess), Gabby (pink horse), Connor (lion), Sage (green fairy), Wesley (chicken), and Amia (witch).

These videos are totally goofy, but the Grandmas will appreciate them. All the toddlers could "pin the nose on the pumpkin." Six little guys participated... Wesley ate his nose and was the only one who didn't participate. Sigh.



And here's a short and sweet vid of my toddling chicken.... I LOVE HIM!




In conclusion, it's been a fun month. I'll eat some more pumpkin in November (and get ready for my birthday!) and then it's Christmas. Ahh.

Hope your Halloween was just as happy!