I love fall. I love fall in California. I think it's funny how we'll wear pants and a jacket/sweater and yet still wear our flip-flops too. It's too much effort to put on those dang shoes and socks. It's even more effort to put those dang shoes and socks on a two-year old. A couple of times I've let Zoe leave the house barefoot and have just brought her shoes and socks in the car because 95% of the time she'll just take them off in the car anyway. It is still a challenge leaving the house. Zoe is showing her independence so much now too. She gets into the car and her car seat by herself and also tries to buckle her own buckles. When we don't have to be anywhere in a hurry that's ok, but when we need to get going I don't have the patience for it. Sometimes I can bribe her out of it with the promise of jelly beans (I keep some generic jelly bellys in the glove box and they have come in handy more than once, plus I snack on them myself) or a beloved toy. I constantly remind myself: it could be worse. I've stopped carrying Benson in from the car in his car seat. It started straining my shoulder. That boy is 6 months and almost 18 lbs. Zoe didn't hit 18 lbs. until she was almost a year old. It's so funny how different those two are. Benson can almost sit up by himself too and as soon as he can, he'll be sitting in the grocery cart. Until then, he usually will ride in the moby wrap.
Benson at 5 months.
Zoe and our carved pumpkins.
All lit up and looking good.
So our stake really REALLY gets into the trunk-or-treat. There are people there decorating their cars hours before the event begins. I signed up to decorate our car this year. I'd never done it before and I don't think I'll be doing it again for awhile. I think it's best left to those that don't have little ones who would rather walk around. We did have a great evening, but I would have liked to walk around with my cute little family. This trunk-or-treat was held the Saturday before Halloween so we got 2 opportunities to get candy this year. Yeah!
Zoe's Me-Maw bought her this bee costume way back in April. It was perfect!
Zoe ate candy.
I passed out candy.
Benson passed out.
Zoe and her cousin Kira on Halloween night.
Devil baby!
Arf's cool glowing glasses and a dangerous pizza cutter.
Don't mess with us!
Real genuine smiles from both the girls. Zoe can say "cheese" until the sun goes down, but trying to get her to say it AND look at the camera AND actually smile is a much harder task.
There's that moby wrap I love!
We took the girls trick-or-treating in my aunts' neighborhood. It's a nice place and we figured it'd be a good way to break Zoe into trick-or-treating. We soon learned she didn't need any breaking in! At the first door we knocked, the lady, who was my aunts' neighbor, opened the door and without hesitation, Zoe just walked right in! She wanted to stop and eat the candy after each house but we taught her that to maximize her candy stash, we'd have to do all the walking and then eat the candy later.
Happy Halloween from the Nickels!
It's cute now. I hope it's still cute in 5 years.
I think she was in heaven.
Cousin playtime.
Happy boy with big beautiful eyes!
Mommy and her favorite little girl.
Papa and lil' Benson.
This boy is so ready to crawl. Either that or he's working on his 6-pack.
