Trick-or-Treat!

No tricks this year - only treats!  The kids had good times at their parties this morning. After nap, their teachers helped them into their costumes - Pebbles and Wolverine, of course! The kids lined up with their classes and marched in the school parade, collecting candy from the local shopowners.

After the parade, I wanted to get a picture of the kids together, but Pebbles was very reluctant...

Clare ran off, so Sean showed us his toughest Wolverine pose:

Chasing down Pebbles:

Caught her!  We only had to bribe her with a lollipop...

...which Clare soon dropped on the ground and it shattered.  Too bad.  :-(

After we collected the kids' stuff and said goodbye to our school friends and to Grandma, PaPa, and Aunt Mary, we headed home for a little rest, dinner, and decorating:

After dinner, we set out to trick-or-treat in the neighborhood with our neighbors. While we were waiting to gather up the rest of our crew, the Sooy kids hung out with Ninja, who ended up trailing behind us for a good part of the night.

Trick-or-treat! Sean is an old pro at this, so he was very polite, only taking one candy and thanking everyone. Clare was super-excited by the whole experience and charmed her way to almost double the amount of candy that Sean got.

The kids finally got to get up close to this skeleton balloon - we drive by it every night and Clare always says, "he's waving at me! I want to SEE him!"  Well, here you go!

The kids with Daddy dressed as a World Champion Red Sox Fan:

With Mommy (Sean was starting to lose steam at this point):

And when we got home, Sean had a hard time letting go of Halloween, especially the candy we bought to give out to other trick-or-treaters.  We were able to calm down this overtired-but-still-wound-up Halloween reveler by sorting out their candy while watching "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!"

Sean already knows what he wants to be next year - Leonardo the Ninja Turtle and Clare wants to be a purple lollipop.  Happy Halloween!

Halloween Parade

We took the kids to a Halloween Parade this weekend to kick off our Halloween celebrations! The kids were excited to get dressed up in their costumes - Wolverine and Pebbles Flintstone!

We got to the parade just as it began and the kids got a prime spot on the sidelines - with their treat bags.  I don't know how many times they asked me why we were bringing treat bags!

One of the first floats to go by was the GhostBUSters, accompanied by a bunch of ghosts, ghostbusters, Slimer, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

A couple of the ghosts dropped some candy in the kids' bags - so that's why we brought those!

Pirate float:

Camping float:

Classic car with the "Shoprite cat" on top... last fall the Shoprite near us has this cat on display by the seasonal aisle - this was always the highlight of our grocery trips!  Sean was delighted to see his old friend again :-)

Minion from Despicable Me:

Sean got excited when this car drove by - "Look! A motorcar like the Toad drives!"

So much candy! Good thing their school is going to collect "extra" candy for Operation ShoeBox.

There were plenty of firetrucks, regular trucks, tractors, and other heavy machinery to entertain the kids between floats.

Chickens on a firetruck?

And no parade in the Delaware Valley would be complete without an appearance from a Mummers String Band!  This band was decked out in pirate costumes and their leaded looked just like a sparkly Captain Hook!

So sparkly, so blurry

 

Finally, the parade closed with Santa Claus!  But you'll have to wait your turn, Santa! The Two Sooy Kids are ready for their Halloween parties and parade at school tomorrow - followed by trick-or-treating around the neighborhood! Happy Halloween!

Field Trip!

Sean went on his very first real field trip last week!  The class went to a nearby farm to go pumpkin-picking and Mommy was able to take off of work so she could help chaperon.  First up, the bus ride - Sean was ecstatic at the prospect of getting on a "real big school bus!"  Honestly, I think the bus could have driven the kids around the neighborhood a couple of times and they would have been thrilled...

But they did end up at the pumpkin patch and Mommy was there to meet Sean when he got off the bus! (The chaperons were not needed for the bus ride.)  Sean couldn't wait to tell me all about the bus trip - "it was very bumpy and noisy, Mommy!!!"

Our group was immediately ushered onto a wagon waiting to take us out to the pumpkin patch. After the initial excitement of being out and about with all his pals started to wear off, Sean and his friends took some "selfies" on my camera...

 

So many selfies - these are just a couple of them!

We got to the pumpkin patch and the kids set out to find their perfect pumpkins - everyone was allowed to pick one pumpkin - even the adults!

Sean asked if he could pick a pumpkin for himself and one for Clare. What a good brother! 

Sean picked out this little beauty:

 
But then put it back and picked up this gnarly half green/half orange pumpkin, which is currently on display on our porch:

After the kids all picked their pumpkins, the teacher wrote each child's initials on his/her pumpkin and put the pumpkins into a wheelbarrow for a farmer to take back for us - what service!  Meanwhile, we took the hayride back to the farm so we could go see the petting zoo and this pumpkin playhouse:

The balance beams:

Sean and a friend took a break from running around to watch the ducks:

At this point, it was time for potty breaks and then lunch! We were asked to send lunch with the kids and as they were each excitedly asking each other, "What are you eating?  What are YOU eating?", it occurred to me that this is probably the first time that they were all eating different lunches, since the daycare provides lunch for them on normal days.  Sean had his favorite sandwich - 2 slices of bread, 1 slice of turkey, 1 slice of ham, 1 slice of "the kind of cheese Daddy eats" (cheddar), and NO mustard, thankyouverymuch - plus, grapes and graham crackers, all in his new superhero lunchbag!

Our group ate lunch at the same time as a few other groups and as the kids finished, some of the other groups started to sing songs, play games, or tell stories. Our group? Oh, they were playing with rocks ... in the dirt :-)

They could have stayed like this for the rest of the trip, but there was still time to play on the BIG playground!  There were a lot calls of "C'mon boys! Time to go" before we eventually got the boys out of the dirt and over to the playground :-)

Among other things, Sean took a turn at the push-pedal go-carts, played in the barnyard store, rode a cow, and went rock climbing:

After a long time on the playground, it was time to get back on the bus to go back to school. On the walk back to the bus, Sean was holding hands with his bus buddy and the two boys were so tired, they kept bumping into each other while simultaneously trying to help each other along.  Just before boarding the bus, -Sean called out to me, "Thank you Mommy for coming on this trip for pumpkin-picking with me! It was sooooo fun!" Awwwww! And then he got on the bus, turned to wave at me, and found his seat. His teacher later told me that Sean and his bus buddy both fell fast asleep on the ride home - Sean's buddy leaned his head against the window and Sean laid his head down in his buddy's lap! What are friends for, right?

And what about Clare? Well, Clare got to go on a pumpkin-picking adventure of her own that day - at the school playground!  She picked out a teeny-tiny baby pumpkin that she held and cuddled for most of the evening: