Happy New Year...uhh, or Happy Halloween. Whatever.

Well, since tomorrow is NYE, I thought it was a good time to recap 2013 write about visiting the pumpkin patch and Halloween. Eh. So it goes.

We visited the pumpkin patch on Sauvie Island, just like I used to as a kid. Judah had fun seeing the animals in the barn: bunnies, chickens, goats, geese, and a llama- maybe a sheep too? It's been a while and I can't remember now. I guess that is why you should write things down right away, huh?

We then went and played in the mini hay maze and hay tower.

Then  we went to the near field (instead of riding the tractor to the far fields) and let Judah pick out his own pumpkin. The only requirement is he had to carry it himself.

We helped him find a perfectly adorable, round, orange pumpkin, but when we were walking back to pay he found what he considered an even better pumpkin.

It fit in the palms of his hands and had a bonus rotting spot in back. Well, done, Judah. Nice pick. We tried to convince him that his first pumpkin was superior, but he wasn't having it. He loved his little pumpkin.

Shosh is making the face Bill and I wanted to make about Judah's choice in pumpkin.

This was Judah's third Halloween, but the first time he has really gotten into it and understood that it is a special day. This was the first year we took him trick-or-treating, which he definitely got a kick out of.

We had some practice runs on trick-or-treating in the days leading up to Halloween. We would have him ring our own bell and say "trick-or-treat", "thank you", and "happy Halloween". One day, his Tito Kim and Auntie Katie were over, so he got practice with them, which made them and him very happy.

moments before throwing that pine duff directly at my face

When the big day arrived, he was a bit apprehensive about going trick-or-treating. There was some definite fussing going on while we were getting ready to head out. After a visiting a few houses, he started to hit his stride and realized how awesome it was to get candy.

We didn't see a lot of other people while were out, because we went so early. However, we had no problem filling up his little bat candy bag (which only held 15 pieces or so of candy).

Ralph didn't even care.

When we got home we let him pick one piece of candy to eat (he went with a bag of mini m&ms) and the rest we put away to dole out once a day (except he ended up forgetting the candy existed after 3 or 4 days).

We got him all ready for bed, but he was too psyched on having trick-or-treaters at the house to actually go to bed. We let him stay up and answer the door bell. I'm pretty sure he preferred handing out candy to actually going trick-or-treating himself.

We didn't get a ton of trick-or-treaters at the house, maybe only 20 or so. This was our first Halloween in our new house so we had no idea how many to expect. I was was hoping for more, but not surprised that we wound up with as many as we did.

Shosh is now the 3rd baby in the family to wear the panda costume for their first Halloween. The initial panda was her cousin Azalea (my brother's daughter), then Judah, and now Shosh.

Now we will have to pass it on to any future babies in the family. She was pretty ambivalent to the whole thing, which, of course, makes sense as she was only 3 and a half months old at the time.

family portrait

this is what it looks like when a triceratops is in time-out... for throwing pine duff in my face