nolan's first halloween

so, as warned...here is the first of a few "past due" posts.

halloween has long been one of my favorite holidays.  i love drinking hot cider and picking out my pumpkin at a real pumpkin patch.  i love carving jack-o-lanterns and i love costumes and trick-or-treating!  in fact, i trick-or-treated right up through high school (with my lovely friend michelle (gustafson) macarthur...and we only got egged once...oh...sad).  so by 28, i've had a lot of costumes and a few repeats!  some of my favorites have been a pretty sweet bat (with a matching bat costume for my baby doll) both made by my mama when i was little, a cheerleader three times (once in first-ish grade...thanks ma, once in 10th grade and once in college), a geisha twice (once in elementary school and once in 2007 on a very memorable night), tinkerbell (thank you caitlin for an awesome dress!) and i think my all-time favorite had to be when i was helen parr, aka elastigirl, aka mrs. incredible (from the incredibles).  that costume was made by me...and awesome.

this year we had lofty goals.  i refused to have a pumpkin from a grocery store and we planned to have family costumes all of the same theme.  then we remembered that we had an 8-month-old baby.  trick-or-treating? kinda pointless and out.  family themed costumes?   too much time to put together (and $$).  sipping hot cider?  it was 100 degrees the day we drove (an hour mind you) to the pumpkin patch.  next year.  next year for sure.

in spite of a lack of cider, the lengthy car ride and ridiculous heat, the pumpkin patch was pretty cool.  the pumpkins were merely placed out in a field on hay instead of us getting to traipse through mud, but it was a real farm with tons of fun things to do.  again, a little wasted on nolan this year, but certainly a fun tradition to start! we watched a live bluegrass band, went on a wagon ride around the farm, saw lots of animals (including a piglet race...hmmm...), ate yummy food and picked out pumpkins (obviously).

as for costumes, we bagged the idea that we were all going to dress up and decided just nolan this year.  we nearly squeezed him into a slightly too small and very warm, but cute monkey costume, but decided against it.  in the end, we had a very sweet little golfer, entirely assembled of articles of clothing we already had!  sweet! we chose to omit the golf club from the costume due to potential harm to himself and others.  ;)

we also bagged the trick-or-treating idea and went to a park in venice to hang out with some friends.  there was a neighborhood halloween get together going on at the park with tons of little ones all dressed up.  it was so cute to see all the costumes.  we stayed out of the main event and chilled out on a blanket in the grass playing with toys and then went to the rothschilds' for some delicious pizza!

 (that's superman on nolan's right)

 as per usual, we ate pizza, nolan ate books...

we did get the pumpkins carved, but not until we returned home from all the fun at the park and the rothschilds', so they never made it outside for display.  also, mine was too terrible to even earn a picture.  :)  not sure nolan was really into this part either, but fun for us!

 nolan put his finger over the flash to add a creepy red tint to the picture...he's so creative.  ;)

 jack

 

all in all, a great first halloween.  maybe next year it won't be so crazy hot and i'll bring my own cider.  :)  and i promise...our entire family will be in costume.