Our Halloween this year was definitely different. An almost 4 year old carving his first pumpkin, a 1 year old who could actually walk this year to trick-or-treat, and stolen pumpkins! The night before halloween we arrived home to find that our pumpkins had been stolen. It's a tradition I guess here in Henderson to steal people's pumpkins. Not a tradition that I'm at all fond of! Especially when you have a little boy who looked at his pumpkins daily, and they were pumpkins from Grandma Carol's pumpkin patch. Pretty special to him!
So that evening this mommy was a tad-bit upset to say the least and I got on facebook and made some statements about how I wished that whoever stole them would think about whose house they were standing in front of next time and who it would be effecting by stealing that pumpkin that they thought they needed so bad. (Let me interject here, that over the last 2 years or so, pumpkins have been stolen, but nothing ever seems to happen with them. Usually they get smashed on mainstreet.) So after my little rant, I felt a smidge better. However, my rant must have struck a nerve with someone or some parent because the next morning to our delight, almost EVERY single PUMPKIN was back on our front porch!!! The smile on Ben's face was so big. I'm so glad we didn't have to go through those tears again as to why someone would do that.
So here is Ben prior to pumpkin-carving:
During: (I thought he would like scooping out the seeds and the "gunk", but he thought it was pretty gross and a good "mommy job" he said.)
After: I had to help him cut out the face, but he did do some of it. I think he had a great time!
And now to the pirates and dancers....TA-DA!!! Ben has said he wanted to be a pirate since last halloween and so that is what he did. And Madalyn, well, you try to get her in a costume! She managed quite well in spite of the skirt being a little big. It didn't take her long to figure out the trick-or-treating process. Pretty special Pirate and pretty cute ballerina, if I do say so myself. :-)
So this is Maddie before her haircut. Her hair had gotten so long in front that I had to put it in a pigtail every day just to keep it out of her eyes. So the plan was to just get a trim of her bangs.
This is Lori getting ready to cut Maddie's hair.
We were AMAZED!!! She sat perfectly still and NEVER moved! I'm not sure if she was worried about the scissors or if Lori just kept her attention so well. I also think she liked looking in the mirror at herself. 
And here we have the finished Maddie! So nice to see those pretty blue eyes again!
Other things Maddie has been up to...my shoes. She likes to attempt to walk in them when I haven't put them away.
Okay so this picture needs a bit of explaining for some. This is a piano that I got for christmas when I was about 3 years old I think. Maybe 2. There are lots of pictures of me playing it wearing my cowboy boots. I have had it out in the basement for awhile now, and the other night Maddie was pounding on the basement door, so I opened it and she went down the stairs, grabbed the seat and starting crawling back upstair with it. I think she was trying to tell me to bring the piano too. So I did. And now every day we get some tunes played by both Maddie and Ben. Not sure how long I'll be able to handle it, but for now, it's okay. One more thing about the picture, it looks just like me. I should figure out a way to put the one of me on here for you to compare.
