Fall-O-Ween

Just like last year, autumn is becoming a cold and rainy season. Unlike last year, I actually have rain boots for the boys, working umbrellas for Arthur and myself, as well as a plastic waterproof stroller cover for Felix. The first time I put the stroller cover on, Felix brought my attention to the little air holes cut into the sides to, you know, ensure your baby doesn't suffocate. Because a dry toddler is nothing if he has no air to breathe. Despite myself, I couldn't stop hearing Mitch Hedberg's voice in my head saying "And I'd certainly have to punch some holes in the lid, because he's damn sure used to air." And Felix was just sitting there, dry, in his little world, breathing all that air that he's accustomed to having,making me laugh even more. It didn't help that his raincoat looks like this:

In our autumn travels, we always visit Herrle's Market a lot. Usually at least once a week. They have the worlds best corn there, and lots of other local produce. They also have one of those photo boards with the faces cut out so you can take your picture as different characters.

Don't mind the picture, Arthur is mid-moo here. When I showed the pictures to the boys later, Felix identified all of the animals as pigs for some reason, except for the cow. The cow was a cow, and Arthur in this picture is a "cow-boy". Perfectly logical reasoning really.

Also with the advent of fall comes NFL football. The boys all get dressed up in their Steelers gear on football day, which translates to whatever day of the week the Steelers are playing. At any given point in October they can also be seen wearing parts of their halloween costumes. Arthur in particular was constantly in his giraffe costume, and apparently the giraffe pants go perfectly with his Polamalu jersey.

We raked the leaves into a big pile. Over and over again! We didn't actually end up getting rid of the leaves until November though. The plan was to wait for our neighbour's oak tree to lose all of it's leaves first, which worked really well!

My sister came over with my niece and nephew to join in on the random costume fun. Of course the kids all dumped the whole box of costumes and found the make-up crayons in the bottom. So there was nothing to be done but paint faces! Tigers were by far the most popular that day despite my complete lack of skill in the face painting art. Davan chose the also popular giraffe. I wish that Crayola made face painting makeup for halloween though, because this stuff was less washable than crayons on walls around here. It stuck around for a couple days. As seen in this self taken portrait of Arthur:

I call it "Boy Sneezing"

Arthur is getting very creative with his artwork. Everyday he comes home from school with a new and more elaborate treasure map designed to find that ever elusive item, the missing puzzle piece from the Cars puzzle at school. Most of these are co-authored by his friend Joyce. I have been sternly lectured to make sure that I leave any and all maps I find in Arthur's backpack so that he has them there for school the next day. After last months painting that Travis swears looks like a chicken:

Look, I'm a chicken! (Marge)

Anyway, after the chicken painting (which was done as an abstract painting, any resemblance to a real chicken is totally coincidental) I've started taking pictures of more of Arthur's art. Seen here are "Airplane", "Untitled Abstract", and "Bowser"

Speaking of extra special photos, we recently had the boys photographs taken for our upcoming trip to Florida in March. I was worried that they wouldn't understand being told *not* to smile for a camera, but it turned out that they were so pissed off at being forced to sit on a stool while a stranger took their picture that they didn't even come close to smiling. Arthur's lips twitched like crazy, he looked like someone whose meds were wearing off. Felix just looked mad, which, combined with his poorly thought out wardrobe that day, made him look extra dangerous.

Mug shots anyone?

Continuing on with the Arthur news, Arthur is doing amazing at school this year. He has a few close friends, and is happy to call everyone he knows from school his friend. Even that kid Hashim who keeps tearing up his treasure maps. At school, Arthur plays with Joyce (who is in his class, and is in SK) as well as Desi (Who isn't in his class, and is in JK). Both kids actually live on our street! I knew that Desi did, since we see him at the bus stop every day, but Joyce is on a different bus at a different bus stop for some reason. Possibly just because her house is higher up on the street. We actually only found out where Joyce lives because she came trick-or-treating at our house on halloween and I finally got to meet her parents! They seem very nice, and said that Joyce was always talking about her "best friend Arthur". It is so SO nice to hear things like that about your kid. Especially with how shy and awkward Arthur seemed in JK.

Arthur and his friend Desi playing 3DS

Because of all of this social success, this is the first year that we're inviting school friends to Arthur's birthday party. He's turning five at the end of November and we had a really hard time deciding on where to have the party. We're looking at about seven kids including Arthur and Felix, with about nine adults if all of the parents come too, so it's definitely too many people to have in our house. We don't even have enough space for that many people to sit! So we started looking at where to have it. After all of the choices were narrowed down, we were seriously considering Chuck E Cheese. But we had never been there with the boys so it was time to go check it out.

It was pretty awesome! So we booked it there. Arthur is a little upset because he wanted to have it at Great Wolf Lodge again since we went there for his birthday last year, but I think he's settled into having it here. With that settled, we finished getting ready for halloween and went trick-or-treating!

Arthur went as a dragon and Felix went as a giraffe. It was such a huge switch from last year, where they were both pretty nervous and not sure of what to do. It helped that we met up with Desi and his parents and went around with them, but he was off and running from the start. Felix thought that the spookiest halloween decorations were hilarious and laughed his little head off at them. Bonus points (and laughs) if it moved, made noise, or both. He also made sure to push to the front of the door if it looked like he was being overlooked for candy, it was awesome. Best halloween yet! And the haul of candy they got was amazing. We sorted it into a whole bucket full of chocolate, a bucket full of candy, and a grocery bag full of fun sized chip bags. The boys (and Travis) have been making steady inroads into the stash so far, but it's barely depleted.

On school days, Felix and I have to keep ourselves entertained. Sometimes that involves me having a little facebook time. This time though, I suddenly noticed that Felix was being awfully quiet, so I went to check out what he was doing. When asked, he said "cooking!" which translates in the real world to smashing a rice cake to smithereens in an empty milk pitcher with a ladle. Being relatively harmless I let him go at it for a while. Then I heard Lando plaintively meowing for help and quickly raced for my phone to take a picture. Poor Lando, he is constantly terrorized by the loving attention from the boys.

And in the evenings, sometimes it's nice to have little surprises to keep the boys entertained while I make supper. Tonight I gave them pirate eye patches and gold dubloonies a la Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Arthur chose to wear his patch over his mouth and I wasn't quick to correct him. Once he changed it to his eye he was adamant that I should take a picture of that as well ;)

And now that autumn is coming to a close, we have daylight savings time ending tonight and the lead up to christmas can begin. Bring on the christmas music!