Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everyone!  Sorry for the delay in posts, but there are enough pictures in this one to make up for it.  It is very, very hard to narrow down pictures of Grady in his train conductor uniform.

We've been in varying degrees of under the weather over here for the past few weeks.  Grady's had a cough and runny nose for a while, which Matt and I caught just in time for Uncle Cliff's visit.  Matt's turned into pneumonia (poor Daddy!) but Grady and I luckily managed to avoid that.  We're all on the mend, although the cough persists still.  In fact, Matt and I are having a cough-off as I type. This one is a doozy.

We had a great time with Uncle Cliff, as commemorated by exactly one picture (gah!).  Here we are at the food carts after a fun trip to Forest Park.

Grady was quite smitten by Uncle Cliff, and would ask for him almost immediately upon waking (after Mommy?  and Toys?  came "Kiff?" much to Daddy's disappointment....).  He's still talking about him a few weeks after his departure.  Cliff was sleeping on the couch, so we would be quiet coming downstairs on our way out to let Cliff keep sleeping.  Grady will still randomly say "Quiet.  Kiff!"  We also sent a picture of Grady in his Halloween costume by text to Grandpa and Nana.  When I told Grady what I was doing, he insisted we send the picture to Kiff as well.  Grady liked to point out all the "TRUCKS!" to Uncle Cliff, even putting together his first three-word sentence ("Big white truck!"). 

At our new house, we are pretty near a busy road where you can see lots of trucks, and beyond that is a train yard.  A little boy's dream!  Here's Grady on our first venture down to the yard.

Now for the picture overload.  I have narrowed these down as much as I could, apologies.

Here are some photos of Grady playing in the leaf pile.  As you can see, he is quite fond of his rake.

 The leaf pile isn't too shabby, either.

Next Halloween-y activity - pumpkin carving!  If you look closely, you can see Grady's technique gradually devolve (evolve?) from carefully using one spoon, to somehow using 3 spoons to scoop the pumpkin. 

We roasted the pumpkin seeds after ("pum-kin... seeds") and Grady was a bit obsessed with them.  I brought up a small plate for everyone to eat, and he was at first cautious and then one by one shoveled those suckers into his mouth so fast!  No sharing for Grady.  Daddy asked for one, and Grady picked it up, brought it over to Matt, and then changed his mind and ate it right up.

This weekend we also took part in our neighborhood's Monster March. 

Along the route we ran into one of Grady's friends from school, Soren (the lion).  Did Grady acknowledge Soren?  No.  Did he go right over to Soren's wagon like he owned it and take a seat?  Well....

And to add insult to injury....

It was a great event, and we even ran into my business partner Tabitha there.  Her son was dressed in the same costume - the only other boy we saw in it.  Great minds!

And here's a shot of mommy and Grady.

Onto Halloween Day.  Grady LOVED riding around in his train before getting ready to Trick or Treat.

Then it was down to business. Here's Grady with his bucket.

We went to three houses for trick or treating.  Our neighbor across the street has a little girl named Josie a month younger than Grady, so we started there.  Grady didn't quite understand the whole trick or treat thing, being much more distracted by the toys in Josie's living room.  Our neighbor gave him the candy, Grady then handed him his entire bucket and ran as fast as he could over to the toys.  By the second house, he got it, and quickly took a piece.  By the third, he was reaching in for a second.  Although he was able to say "trick or treat" at home, he was too shy to say it while we were out - or else too distracted by the candy. 

When we got home, we let Grady have his first candy bar.  He chose a Twix.

I love my little engineer!  Happy Halloween!