HaPPy HaLLoWeeN!

Evan had a great time Trick or Treating tonight!  This is the first year it all made sense to him...kind of.  He originally wanted to be traffic.  I figured out a traffic costume.  (It was a black fleece with yellow tape and Hot Wheels attached to it.)  Once he got it on, he was over it in about 2 minutes.  He's never been a costume kid.  So we went with stuff we already had at home at that point.  Evan was a construction worker.  He was also sure to make that very clear to anyone who called him Bob the Builder.  (He's not a Bob fan.)  He went with Mike and Andria around the neighborhood.  I stayed home and passed out candy to the kids that came around.  They were gone for about an hour, and Evan was a tired boy with red feet when they got home.  We also baked some Halloween cookies this morning. 

4 Years of Pumpkin Patch

Look at how big Evan is getting!  We went and stood next to the growth chart apple at the pumpkin patch yesterday.  Evan is standing all by himself (nobody is making him stand there like in years past).  He's a little taller than 3 feet though - there's a little dip where the kids are supposed to stand.  :-)

 Fall 2007

 Fall 2008

 Fall 2009

Fall 2010

Pumpkin Patch, Bob Evans, and Carving

After work yesterday, I picked up Evan, then Andria, Mike and I all met at Tuttle's to take Evan to the pumpkin patch.  Now, Tuttle's isn't THE pumpkin patch to go to in this area, but it's not quite 15 minutes from home (or the sitter's), it's open until 6 on the weekdays, it's super-cheap ($3 for kids to play and free parking), and we've gone every year since Evan was 4 months old.  Evan had a great time playing.  We even bought a bag of amazing Golden Delicious apples, I priced the blueberry pie I'm buying for Thanksgiving (since I don't do pie well), and we got apple cider slushies (better than you'd expect). 

This morning, I realized my Bob Evan's coupon for a buy one, get one breakfast was going to expire, so we went out for breakfast (my fave).  I've included a picture of Mike and Evan at the table.  Evan was tickled that the name of the restaurant had his name in it too.

We carved our monster pumpkin tonight.  Evan was all about it until he took one look (and one whiff) of the pumpkin innards.  Then, it was all Mom and Dad after that.  He did manage to smile with it when we were finished.

Evan and Mom's Downtown Date

Coloring while we wait for our food....

 Inside the caboose - as soon as he saw me get up, he decided he needed to get up...imagine that...

 In the middle of our feast!

 Having a little ice cream....

 At the Crown Plaza checking out the train cars....

 Running through Pan Am Plaza....

 In Pan Am Plaza in front of Union Station....

 At the mall checking out all the traffic on Maryland (I think)....

In the car right before we left...I realized we didn't have any pictures together....

While on Fall Break this weekend, Evan and I went downtown for our date.  He was such an angel the whole time - it was great!  We stopped to talk to a nice police officer who said, "That's what I like to see little man, you and your best girl out on the town."  We got downtown early (because I'm typically always early) and it was a good thing.  There were tons of FFA (Future Farmers of America) kids everywhere for their annual convention.  (They are the SWEETEST kids by the way....so polite and kind.)  There was also a LOT of construction.  Luckily, there were plenty of police officers directing traffic.  It took us a while to find a parking spot since our usually parking garage was full.  We had to go around the block. 

Once we parked, we made our way through the mall and outside to the Old Spaghetti Factory.  Since we only had a party of 2, we were able to sit in the train caboose that's in the middle of the restaurant.  Evan was soooooo excited!  We had been looking forward to this for a few weeks.  We ate salad, bread and butter, our dinner (I had spaghetti and Evan had macaroni and cheese), and then we topped it off with some vanilla ice cream. 

After we left, we went past the old train station (Union Station) and then to the Crown Plaza Hotel where there are train cars parked and they've been turned into hotel rooms.  I took him to the train car where Mike and I got engaged.  He said "this is so awesome," but he wouldn't go near them. 

We walked through Pan Am Plaza, past St. Elmo's Steakhouse (where Mike and I ate the night we got engaged) and back through the mall.  Our final stop was at the Nestle Tollhouse Cookie shop where I paid almost $5.00 for 2 cookies (well worth the splurge though). 

Then, we went to Grandma's to hang out for a little bit while I ran a couple of errands.  Evan and I had one of the best days ever yesterday.  We were exhausted when we got home, but Evan has discovered Curious George.  He was watching an episode on PBS.com and he said, "Ok Mom.  One more Curious George and that's it.  Then it's time for bed!"  (He said this 2 or 3 times before he actually gave up and went to bed.)  It was funny.

Football

Evan's favorite game these days is hitting the baseball off the tee (in the dining room) or playing tackle/fumble recovery with his dad.  Here are some pictures of the football.  Evan decided when we were watching The Blind Side on HBO the other day that his baseball helmet would do while he played with Mike.  So funny!

Silly Face!

Ever since our computer died this summer and we got a new one, downloading pictures takes more steps.  They're not necessarily hard, it just seems like I have to think about it now.  I had some really cute video last week of Evan and Mike playing, but somehow, I managed to erase it before I downloaded it.  Who knows how I managed that one. 

Evan got to hang out with my Aunt Pam and Uncle Greg this weekend (they were in town from Texas) while Mike and I went to our friends' wedding in the Fort.  He kept calling Uncle Greg "Uncle Great."  It was cute.

Evan's been into watching Mickey Mouse's "Once Upon a Christmas."  I never deleted it off of the DVR last winter because he liked it so much.  He will still belly laugh at Donald Duck sometimes.

We had to reinstitute a sticker chart (God bless the sticker chart) for bed time and wake up time.  Those of you that know Evan know he is the biggest sweetie - but in the morning, if he's woken up (which is most days since we work early), he's a meanie.  (People wonder why I've never taken pictures of Evan sleeping - it's because I try not to unleash the beast as much as possible.)  Evan now gets a sticker to brush teeth without arguing, read books (easy one), go to bed alone (no company from us), and no crying.  We've also transferred the brush teeth and no crying to the morning.  Today went very well.  Evan wants to earn a Dinosaur Train.  It's a show on PBS- frankly it's ingenious.  Dinosaurs and trains on the same show?  Love it!

That's about all - I posted the pic of the silly face because I managed to erase the others.