It was a Halloween miracle ...

Last year as we prepared for Halloween, Cael certainly seemed to like the idea of the holiday.

His feelings, however, changed as soon as it came time to sport his costume.

In fact, we only had a cooperative puppy when he finally went to sleep.

This year I thought we would have an easier time with the costume since we could talk about it with Cael.  We first tried a monkey costume that we thought would be an easy winner since Cael really likes monkeys and carries one to bed with him each night.  We were wrong.  He was hysterical during his brief time in the monkey costume and now will only walk by the costume and point at it.

We thought that a firefighter costume would be a great idea because Cael loves fire trucks.  After showing him the new costume and seeing that we was not interested at all in being a firefighter, we decided that we needed to "sell" him on the firefighter idea.

We decided that firefighter books were the way to go.  We smoothly introduced a few new stories into his rotation that allowed us to talk at length about firefighters putting on their hats, coats and boots.  We tried the costume again ... he immediately removed the hat, cried as soon as the boots were on and wouldn't even get near the jacket.

We continued reading and talking about firefighters over the next few days but suddenly it was 10/30 and we were not any closer to getting him in the costume.  I had to step up my game and I decided what better way than to sport a similar costume myself.

This idea resulted in me serving Cael breakfast while wearing my raincoat, Cael's firefighter hat and my rain boots (they're leopard print which made for quite the finishing touch on the look).  He was very intrigued by the overall look but immediately started pulling the rain coat off me as soon as he got out of his high chair.

My desperation to get him in his costume was good for a laugh and I finally gave up knowing that he would have a good time regardless of what he decided to wear.

We showed up at Cael's school this afternoon for his parade and party and waited for him to appear wearing a t-shirt and sneakers.  We finally caught a glimpse of him and saw ...

BOOTS!

A few more seconds passed and there he was ...

Our little fire fighter was fully dressed ... it was a Halloween miracle!

All it took was the patience of Cael's 2 wonderful teachers and the gentle nudge of interest that resulted from watching all of his buddies put on costumes.  He had a great time at his parade and party but the real fun was going to be an evening of trick-or-treating with Grayson!

Grayson was an adorable golfer!

Cael's initial interest was only in pushing around the truck that he decided to bring along.

But he finally started following Grayson around and found himself warming up to the idea of trick-or-treating.

He truly enjoyed the evening and walked all over our neighborhood collecting candy, saying "thank you" and STILL WEARING HIS COSTUME!!!

It was a very Happy Halloween in Denton!

Fastforward to Fall

Wow ... how is it almost November?!  Our first 3 months in Denton have flown by and all is well in North Texas.  The time with family has been amazing and it's so fun to see Cael enjoy his grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles.  The stress of balancing our work travel schedules has essentially disappeared because life is SO MUCH EASIER with the helping hands of family in the area.

Cael is doing really well ... he loves his school and is into new activities every day.  Below are a few of Cael's favorites at 20 months:
Foods:  Freeze-dried fruit is at the top of the list but he's also a big fan of Pirate's Booty and crunchy snacks of all types.
Activities:  Anything and everything that he can do outside:  climbing, running, riding, playing, digging, and picking up gross things to hand to mommy.   
Books:  The "tractor book" which features pictures of every mode of transportation.  He has become quite an expert at identifying everything from helicopters to combines (I've learned a lot too).
Toys:  Cael's stuffed monkey is now an integral part of his existence, at least when it's bed time.  He's a big fan of vehicles right now too and usually has a truck of some sort in his hands.
Words:  NO!!! (we just loved the introduction of that word!)  Airplane, truck and puppy are in regular rotation too.

He's a very busy little guy and has had a full fall so far.  We've had a few chances to explore the Metroplex and started with a trip to the Ft. Worth Children's Museum.

Cael enjoyed grocery shopping ...

and he trotted around to check out all of the exhibits.

We also visited the Dallas World Aquarium which is so much more than just an aquarium.  We saw birds, monkeys, otters, reptiles, bugs and a few fish, of course:

I think the flamingos won out as Cael's favorite attraction that day.

We got into the spirit of the fall season with a trip to the Dallas Arboretum.  My parents took Janice, Grayson, Cael and me to see what 40,000 beautifully displayed pumpkins looked like and we loved it!

The pumpkin architecture was very impressive ...

... and on the other side of each pumpkin palace ...

... was a new and exciting pumpkin discovery.

 

 



Cael explored mountains of pumpkins ...

... and had fun playing with his cousin.

This face pretty much summed up Cael's opinion of the Arboretum pumpkin village:

We also enjoyed the beautiful Chihuly Glass Exhibit throughout the Arboretum.

It was a perfect day but the pumpkin fun didn't end there ... we still had to get Cael to the pumpkin patch before Halloween.  Last year our little guy was initially skeptical about all of the orange gourds ...

... but he ended up having a wonderful time.

This year Cael got to work inspecting the pumpkins ...

... moving a few around ...

... and finally deciding on a couple that were a little more his size.

Cael also had fun checking out the teepee ...

... and climbing on the hay bales.

But Cael's FAVORITE part of the day was his time spent checking out the tractors!  He loved looking at them while they were parked ...

... while they were towing hay rides ...

... and while they were pulling trains.

Our day at the pumpkin patch was definitely more about the tractors than it was about the pumpkins as you can see by the following example of what Cael did every time he saw a tractor.

All of these adventures exploring the Metroplex have led to some solid nights of sleep for Cael ... this is one of my favorite shots of our fully exhausted little guy ... sweet dreams!