First of all.. I'd like to announce the kickoff of NaBloPoMo. I'll be taking part in the National Blog Posting Month. In short, I'll be posting at least once a day for the month of November. I don't have a "plan" or a "theme" for the month.. aside from posting about two moms and a baby.. but I always do that. The one idea I had was that I'd like to include a note each day telling something that I am thankful for. This should get interesting as we get close to Thanksgiving (thankful for turkey and stuffing) and the Day after Thanksgiving (thankful for SHOPPING MALLS)!

For my first post, I wanted to share a bit about our Halloween. For those who know me.. you know that I HEART HALLOWEEN. I love everything about it.. always have. I love autumn.. I love the cool and crisp air. I love the sound of dried leaves blowing around. I love watching spooky movies. I love Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin. Take all that, put on a costume and go ask strangers for candy and you got yourself a Holiday! I don't know why we don't get the day off from work..

To set the stage.. I'm sitting in the living room.. late on Halloween night into the early hours of November 1. We are watching Ghost Hunters Live on SciFi. AWESOME. I actually yelped at one point and am fairly sure that the lights will stay on in our home tonight. They are having 7 hours broadcast live from Fort Delaware. Shiela is asleep in the rocker and Ben is sound asleep in his crib. I've been downloading pictures from my camera to the computer and then uploading those pictures to flickr and now I'm going to do my best to remember what we did prior to my sugar-induced haze.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Since Halloween fell on a Friday this year, Shiela was able to stay home with Benjamin for the day. After Ben woke up from his nap, I met them at home to drop off the trusty minivan. I had a bit of a camera soap opera that I didn't really blog about.. needless to say, I'm back to my trusty Canon and the photos that I got tonight reminded me why I love that little thing.



We stumbled onto the Superman costume for Ben. We had other ideas, but the Superman costume was cute and made from a soft material. We thought it would be good for daycare, but had plans to do something else for "the real costume". Whatever that means. It turned out that Ben knew EXACTLY what to do with the cape.. it seems that they run around with capes on at daycare. When we tried the costume on him, he put his arms up and started running around the house. That was that.. Ben is superman.





After I finished up at work, we drove over to a local park that was having a Halloween "Party" for kids. There were lots of kids of all ages, but I'd say the most kids were in the pre-school range. It turned out to be a great hit. Ben got to play on the slides with his superman cape on.

While the lighting of the photo below is all sorts of weird, it gives a cool perspective on the park. I was standing on the playscape looking down at Ben and the families that were gathering and getting ready to go trick-or-treating.





After a few more times down the slide.. and some dancing (check the pic below..great footwork for a 22 month old!).. we were ready to go trick-or-treating!



It only took two Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for Ben to catch on to this whole Halloween thing. It wasn't long before he was trucking from house to house.



We went to about 8 to 10 homes. Ben was so very sweet. He was SO excited. He would sign "thank you" to each person that offered us candy and at the last house he even said "happy" after I said "Happy Halloween" to the homeowner.

This was also Shiela's first time trick-or-treating. She was very hesitant to start out with but soon found out that this was community fun and that everyone was being closely watched by their parents and it was safe. I'm glad she got to share her first trick-or-treating experience with her son. The pic below is quickly becoming a favorite of mine!




As we were walking to the car, Ben was chewing on a wrapped Almond Joy bar. It didn't take long before he got through the wrapper and found some chocolate. I unwrapped it for him. He chatted and giggled his way through his first candy bar.




All in all.. it was a very exciting and enjoyable evening.

Now.. if anyone is still reading...

November 1, 2008. I am thankful for my family.