2 cents from hunter

So we go to get the car washed. We are in the middle of going through the automatic carwash  and hunter is pointing up to the skylight screaming!

Thinking he is just scared of all of the spraying water, I pat his leg and tell him “it’s ok, it’s just washing our car”…..he shrieks back “Noooooo!!......... Its peeing!!!!!!!”…..

…..aaaaahhh the joys of potty training.

Another Halloween bites the dust...

The night was cool and crisp, lights were slowly turning off, and the wagon was spilling over with candy!....literally!

We need a retrick or treating day AFTER halloween to get rid of some of this candy! phew!!! (sometimes I wonder if halloween was invented by a dentist....talk about job security!)

I have to say I think we are exhausted but we had SO much fun on halloween!!

I put on monster mash in the car that morning on the way to hunter's school and hunter was singing "hunter mash!" while wiggling his little hips in his seat!!...

I could barely get him dressed that morning because he was estatic to go to school in his costume for his parade and party!

It's the school's annual costume parade. They even had trains up at the school the last few hours for the parents to have fun with the kiddos...

(Wow momma, thooose are some BIG glasses you got there! hee hee...think we may need to change these......if you can't laugh at yourself....well then your just boring....)

After our choo choo ride we had a special special treat (because it's not Friday) and went to McDonalds! Hunter was so excited he wasn't sure what he wanted to scream first, chick or cheat or McDonalds!!!

I assured him that FIRST we eat dinner, THEN we get ready for trick or treat.....from then on he would patiently sound out in his head,....(using hunter language)  phiiiirst dinner, den chick or cheat.....

We go home and he devoured his happy meal.....he adds so MUCH personality to everything...just look at how he eats his happy meal....its like he's preparing for battle!!

After dinner we bypassed our "said" process above a little....sssshhhh don't tell him!......and looked through our school treats from the day to waste some time before chick or cheat.....(precious, precious, time that mommy could get some house stuff going real quick!!)

(this is all just from school....i was thinking "Man, i am NEVER going to get him in bed tonight!)

He proudly sported his witch's brew stache too....

We finally loaded up our wagon and were off! Hunter was very persistent that HE pull the wagon...i was glad because then mommy could totally pull a paparazzi on him and get some good photos!

I actually got him to wear his hat most of the time!! (in the beginning............he wisened up and realized that he JUST needed the hat when it was time to walk up to the door.....after that he would pull his wagon to each house....stop......throw on his hat like its something he does everyday to get dressed, grab his pumpkin, and RACE up to the door...............his beard was a No Go.)

(He did so good!!)

There was one point where there were bigger kids in front of us and poor hunter was standing on his little tip toes, yelling at the top of his lungs "CHICK OR CHEAT! CHICK OR CHEAT! CHIIIICKKK ORRRRRR CHEEEEEAAAAT!!!"

I kept trying to tell him that they were NOT going to run out of candy and we had to wait our turn buuuuut he was very sure that they were not going to see him.

Hunter loved all the decorations....there was one inflatable pumpkin I thought I wasn't going to get him away from.

he even did good with some of the other scarier ones...

(weeeeeell, not good enough to actually get him in the picture but good enough that he didn't run SCREAMING home leaving his gnome hat to fend for itself...)

I'm pretty sure he had a BLAST.....it was evident when he almost fell asleep in the wagon at the end of trick or treating that he was just done but woke up in time to see alllllll of his nights hard work piled up before him.....the kid made out like a bandit.

People were falling alllll over themselves giving him BAGS of candy...literally bags.....there were a few houses that were like "oh my gosh you are the cutest thing, here, here, take it all! lets fill up your lil pumpkin!"

Oooooh my....like he really needs any more proof that he can "work the system with his charm".

There is one picture of him that just CRACKS me up...he is contemplating SO HARD about this candy corn that he was stuffing in his mouth...

Its like he's thinking "Candy Corn? or Chocolate...hmmm"...that or he's sick of craaaazy momma's paparazzi technique and thinking..."Really, aren't you done yet..."....he's a trip.

The last big event of the night was getting him to go to bed. He DID NOT want to leave all his candy!....but momma is very convincing and we managed it.

Daddy was not able to be with us trick or treating as he is in his drill currently...he'll be home soon though!! He was GREATLY missed! We did get some photo opps before he left though at my work halloween carnival!

and hunter was thinking about him the whooooole night as you can see in the video...

.....................miss you daddy!

So now its time to retire the decorated pumpkins,

and put away the pictures hanging from the pumpkin patch,

(yes, we bought this one....bluck! that had to taste gross!)

and time to start bustin out christmas........uuh I mean thanksgiving......hee hee

(The hubby and I have an understanding that I can start christmas movies and songs now but NOOOO decorations for christmas until after thanksgiving............)

Thanksgiving night it all goes up......................................I love compromise.....

Phew, with all the sugar for this holiday, I figured we needed a good start to the morning today so I made whole grain blueberry muffins.......Mmmmmmmm there is something so homey about warm muffins....

I think the whole grain worked because our lil' man spent the rest of the morning powering through the house on his bike..

Man, they get harder and harder to wrangle down to get dressed in the morning the bigger they get........

I am slowly taking down the halloween and putting up thanksgiving/fall now buuut I think all that may just have to wait til the weekend.......(that was sarcastic....it's waiting til the weekend..)

I think we may need a nap before we get to it....nap or a cup of joe....i'll take either and/or both.

Chick or Cheat!



Halloween.....Stinson Style

Happy Halloween!!!

It's finally here! Hunter has been practicing his "chick or cheat" alllllllllll weekend!......

We go to McDonalds and he yells, CHICK OR CHEAT!!!,....We go grocery shopping and he is yelling at everyone passing by, Chick or Cheat, Chick or Cheat, Chick or Cheat!!!!!!!

....poor passerbyers....they probably were scared to death thinking they were gonna get mugged by my 2-1/2 yr old......

In any case he is definitely ready for it!

We pretty much stay in our neighborhood for trick or treating. We are pretty lucky in that everyone here seems to LOVE halloween as much as we do.

The houses and shrubs are decorated with orange and white lights...glowing jack o lanterns light up the side walks, cob webs hang from trees and door ways...but most important, EVERYONE is out trick or treating.

We have the radio flyer wagon cleaned and ready to go! I bring it to:
1. dump candy into and 2. have it so hunter can jump in when he is tired of walking...its sooooo much easier

Hunter is going to be a garden gnome like Gnomeo and Juliet...Super friggin cute if you haven't seen it....I figure this is my last year to pick what he is gonna be for halloween and then the independent boy is gonna kick in next year and it will be goblin, ghoul, or superhero city from there on out...so I'd better get the ootsie cutesie stuff in while i can.....i haven't been to harsh on em...he was a lion the first year.....

and Yoda last year....

...Well in any case we have definitely enjoyed "Preparing" for halloween this month....What do I mean by preparing???....weeeeeelll I'll show you...

Forgive all the craziness your about to see...I am an ABSOLUTE NUT for the holidays and Halloween is our second christmas.....welcome to halloween.......Stinson Style.

Remember the patriotic cafe I should have opened on the 4th of July?...lets open another one and call it Crafts and Bakery de Stinson.

We started out the month making halloween favors for the house...This is the first year I have done this one and will keep it up next year..

We made plaster molds of our fingers!! EEEEWWWWWW

Grotesque....YES.......Fun??............................. Even more so!!!

So then I made wreath for the front door...

The spiders are covered in black glitter. I even found a large one for the bow..

Are you scared yet?! This one was actually pretty simple...10 minutes max...I say that because this is what I made last year..

It's still in tact too! I took this picture just for the blog today!

This one wasn't hard,.. just painful and long....2 or 6, 3rd degree burns later and your ready to go!.....jk...kinda

I don't sit still very well...never have...I figure I'll put my restlessness to work and after a couple of years we will have a lot of memories!

With all the crafts going on, I wanted to do some stuff that hunter could help with too..he LOVES suckers and loves to help so I thought this would be neat,

He loooooves this thing....(its not a real pumpkin....the sticks would get soggy...)

and another one that we did together was make halloween suckers!

well, he ate more of the project then anything so i guess he liked it!

mommy was being a dork and had a lil fun with this next one...



Man being attacked by Giant Cat!!! AAAAAAA!!!

(like i said,...big dork)

Now remember this is all spread out through the month of October...jeesh I'd never get the kid to bed if this is all in the same week.....

.......So by the 2nd week of October I start Hunters goodie bags for halloween...

(i start them early in case they end up taking some time and I don't have to stress...I love doing this stuff and stress kills so why do that?.....just enjoy what you do)

I ended up finishing them that day...lol....last year they took me a month.....

they took me a month because genious CRAZY mommy made hand painted / hand made ornaments to tie around the goodie bags that matched his costume........yes, yes I know.....no need to say it...i'm well aware

Here they are,

(they were actually a lot of fun to do...we do similar stuff at christmas)

so this year I saw this and thought it was just great to make for his goodie bags!

(now lets just pray one of the kiddos doesn't stab their eye out with the broom stick handle....maybe i should attach waivers to sign????.......)

Now would be a good time to take a break from reading all this if you need one.....No we're not done.......Are you kidding?! I warned you!! i said Crafts and Bakery de Stinson!!.....ooooooh yes, there's more.....

pause...................................................................................................

.............................................pause.....................................................

ok ok enough with the break,

Well if I haven't mentioned it before, I'll say it now......Hunter LOVES LOVES LOVES cupcakes.

Any kind, any shape, any color....just cupcakes...

Well, with it being halloween and us reading all of his lil halloween books, I thought he might get a kick out of these,

boo!! its a witch!

(I promise there are SOMETHINGS I made that aren't all sugar...)

for instance, I made pumpkin bread...

and there's more but I won't bore you with this stuff...just had to show proof..

It's not just about treats, we love to decorate the house too...

from the hallways,

to the fireplace

(the outside has some too but I think we are going to focus on that next year...if i can stop making all this stuff dang stuff for the interior..)

My work also had its annual halloween carnival! They do it for the kids...It is SO much fun...I volunteered to help with the cotton candy....i think I ate more cotton candy than actually got on the stick...

and here hunter actually wore his hat for more than 10 seconds!! not much more but I'll take what I can get....now I just gotta get him to try the beard....

all in all it was a GREAT October...we wrapped up the last weekend pretty much in the same style as alllllll the previous this month...

We made mini caramel apples....and chocolate frogs with witch's brew...

(hunter JUST hated these....can't you tell.....)

and yes I said chocolate frogs above...

chocolate frogs filled with peanut butter that is!!

I got this frog mold when the latest harry potter movie came out....I didn't get a chance to use it then but thought it would be great for halloween!...well, the mold shoulda came with a warning.....

just because your told they are both female frogs....don't put them in the same cage....uh I mean plate...

why????

because then you got alotta frogs............................Frogs!! frogs everywhere!!! AAAAAAA!!

JK.

These guys are going to get us started before trick or treating! we are going to serve them with witches brew......(sparkling grape juice for the foam with a floating plastic eyeball.....hunter thought this was a RIOT)

the only thing thats a little morbid on the frogs is the eating part....well the way hunter eats them anyway...he loves to hop the frog around and say "Ribbit Ribbit"...

Weeell, then he bites their head off but continues to jump it around saying "Ribbit! Ribbit!"....This poor chocolate frog is hopping, headless, all over the table spewing peanut butter from its neck........

All I can say is at least i didn't fill it with raspberries...........

From our home to yours and wishing you all our love from Texas!!

Happy Halloween!!!