Halloween in a nutshell

Jon made his famous flaming pumpkins, terrifying the neighbors and instigating this conversation yet again.   This year, however, Jon and Elijah unwittingly carved pumpkins to represent the both of us; I'll let you guess who's who:

Note the highly flammable weeds, err, cornstalks

Here's a wide shot of the driveway....

Note that the Montero is parked in the fire-ready position, albeit on the wrong side of the fire.

Sadly, it was raining, which put a damper on both the pumpkins and the trick or treaters...but not before the new French (really) neighbors stopped by to be amazed by the limitless American taste for shock and awe.

Fortunately, here in Mormondom, the uber-Christian holiday that is Halloween has been stretched out over three days.  Because it falls on a Sunday.  Am I the only one who sees the irony here???  Anyhoo, this meant the boys got to trunk or treat...then trick or treat...and then trick or treat AGAIN with their mother, who is in town this weekend.  I'm done with Halloween, by the way...

At the trunk or treat:  Yoda, Apollo, Skeletor.  Obviously, not the blue one.  A different one.

Look at Gabriel's hand.  Now:

Gabriel:  You want to take this stupid hat off of me.

Jon:  I want to take this stupid hat off of you.

Gabriel:  You want to wear the stupid hat.

Jon:  I want to wear the stupid hat.

Gabriel:  You don't mind if I sleep in your bed and kick you in the kidneys all night.

Jon:  I don't mind if you sleep in my bed and kick me in the kidneys all night.

Let's see...what else happened this weekend....

Oh!  I present to you....Gabriel's first word (outside of mama and dada):



A quick word of explanation:  it took me about a zillion takes to figure out why my camera was, mysteriously, not focusing (answer:  it was.  on the supermacro level).  At any rate, Gabriel was DONE telling us that Dharma is a doggie...hence the disgust as he turned away from Jon.  In fact, I think that, had his spoken vocabulary been able to support it, his answer to Jon's question would have been more like, "It's a dog.  Sheesh.  I've told you that a thousand times.  You guys are morons.  I'm going to go read a book."

And now, I'm going to go play with the older boys, who just got back from spending the weekend with their mother (who had them steal pillowcases from the hotel she was staying at to trick or treat with.  Because you can't get bags for a buck at WalMart.  FACEPALM!).

And, apparently, work on my "charity for all men" and "unexpressed thoughts."