Getting Ready for Halloween (Sneak Preview at the End!)...

Pumpkin patches, sewing costumes, bookstore trick-or-treating and Halloween painting!  We have been in full Halloween mode over here for the last few days, so I have a lot to document.  I'll give you a sneak peek at the boys' costumes at the end, with the promise of better pictures to come after the Big Day. 

Jamesie and Crunchy Cody at the Pumpkin Patch last weekend.  James wore the appropriate pumpkin-picking attire, cody forgot his pumpkin John-John at home.

Sean is getting really good at using complete sentences lately.  In this picture he was saying over and over, "That is a pumpkin.  That is a pumpkin."  Yep, sure is.

We went pumpkin-picking with Sean's farming buddy Gabe.  Gabe started school (yes, he's only 1-- he's a genius) a few months ago, so Sean hasn't been able to see him as much and gets SO excited at the prospect of hanging out with Gabe... 

...so excited that neither rain nor snow nor hazardous materials can stand in their way of a good time.  Looks like these two got caught just in time.

On the way home from the pumpkin patch Sean told me he wanted to paint "a little mouth and some little eyes" on his pumpkin.  When it came time to paint, this was what he actually wanted. This was all his idea ("Yellow Hat Man on Seannie's and Georgio on Jamesie's pumpkin")-- I am merely the conduit of his genius. However, the other side of the Man pumpkin has a little mouth and some eyes that a two year old hand painted.  Its pretty cute, i just forgot to get a picture of it.

Today we went to Barnes & Noble for the weekly toddler storytime.  Gretchen and I like to meet there on Thursdays with the kids because they are so entertained with everything going on we can just sit and chat for a few hours.  We're usually the last to leave.  Today all the kids dressed up and "trick or treated" around the store.  It was a good pace for the little guys, and Sean nearly had a heart attack when he realized people we giving him candy for nothing.  Jamesie is reusing the St. Francis costume of Sean's from two years ago...

...and looking cute as ever. He is just killing me lately with how sweet and adorable he is. 

And Sean is again aiming high and told me he wanted to be "A Pope" for Halloween, once I described to him what costumes are and that we can chose to dress up as something.  We have been working on the costume for a few weeks, so he has been getting more and more excited about it.  He looked awesome today.  In this picture he is sheparding his flock (Greta the Farmer) to get cookies from Mr. Jeremy, the story time reader. On the way into the store Sean was (audibly) chanting "Seannie is a Pope, Seannie is a Pope." 

The Pontiff enjoying story time.

Bless you, my children.