Ticker Feet!

That's Connery's newest phrase, Trick or Treat! Fortunately, the "Dark Vader" and Yoda got lots of treats this year, and Kieran's only "trick" is that he wouldn't wear his mask. I even added a longer piece of elastic so it could hang around his neck and lie on his chest, but he wouldn't do that either. Oh, well, right? They still looked cute.

We started the week by visiting Tate Farms, which was a blast, as usual. This year, Ba went with us, and Baby Ellie and her fan club joined us later (Auntie JennBeth, Joan and John, aka Mimi and Oppa). Kieran loved all the animals, but again we saw that Connery's tough talk stops when it comes to mingling with critters. I didn't think we'd ever pull the boys out of the corn "pool," and I can't blame them--it really does feel good. We all loved the hayride out to the pumpkin patch, and Kieran kept pointing to the pumpkins he was going to pick...and was the FIRST person off the truck! He passed right by people once the truck stopped--I think he would have climbed over them if they weren't already standing up. Connery tried to pick up the biggest pumpkins, of course, and we got some cute pics of the kids sitting among them. It was a lot of excitement and knocked both boys out once we started driving home. Connery took a FOUR hour nap!

The next night, we went Trunk or Treating at Nana and Papa's church, which was so much fun! The boys got a kick out of seeing Papa and Nana dressed up, and I've never seen the boys laugh so hard jumping on the inflatables. It was a little bizarre watching "Yoda" inside them. Meagan was a great host (she's always in charge ;), and Kieran won a cake in the cake walk. By landing on the number 3, of course.

On Halloween day, the boys' school had a Fall Fest, so they got to celebrate with their friends, work on their skills at the ring toss, and load up with spider rings and press-on tattoos. That night, they put on their Star Wars garb and "ticker feet"-ed at Ba's house first...only to discover a pregnant hillbilly bride at the door! Connery didn't know what to think and stared at her for a long time. She looked hysterical! Then we drove home so the big Darth Vader (Daddy-o) could greet the boys at the door. We hit up 5 houses in the neighborhood before the bags got so heavy the boys passed them off on us, so we came home and dumped the candy in a pile on the floor of course. All good candy this year. I think it was the first year ever that we didn't get any old Tootsie Rolls... ;)

The next night, Sandy and I planned to drive to Chattanooga for my friend Jay's wedding. Looking forward to a weekend away, we dropped the boys off at Ba's, started driving... and realized the wedding was at 3 EASTERN time. Somehow it just never occured to us. ugh! We were going to be late, so we decided to stay in town, had a nice lunch at Connor's steakhouse, and went to see a local school's production of Urinetown (one of our favorite shows--and it was absolutely adorable!!) and Jeff and Christine's Halloween party. We brainstormed costume ideas, and Sandy suggested the Graduate and Mrs. Robinson. My gut response was, "Are you saying I'm old??" He quickly recovered and said, "No, I thought you could do some theatre makeup to give yourself some lines." Close one, buddy. Congrats to Steph and Caleb for their Most Original Juno costumes. Steph got to be pregnant on Halloween again ;)

Hard to believe it's November, because the weather's been so pretty. Now we're gearing up for my heavy week of rehearsals before our one-act In the Blood, which is going to be amazing, I think. Then Thanksgiving and Christmas will be right here! Halloween opens the floodgate of holidays. Maybe that's why load up on candy. To get a sugar high to get us through! (See some October pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/amysandy/October08#...but give me a couple of weeks to put the entire month up.)