The sort of pumpkin patch

Before we are too far out of the harvest season I better get up our pictures from the closest thing to a pumpkin patch we could find in Miami (a.k.a. a church with a bunch of pumpkins thrown on the lawn).

While I feel the pressure to get the "classic" pictures like all the other "good" moms out there every year - like the annual pumpkin patch shots, I'm sort of over trying to get good pictures of my kids. They don't smile.  They don't hold still.  They don't listen to anything I say and they throw tantrums.  So most of my pictures were of them running away from me, crusty-faced at the camera, with their faces shoved full of candy that I couldn't pry away from them, or laying on the ground in complete and utter screaming meltdown mode.

At least they had fun running around and filling up their wagons with pumpkins.

But I guess it's worth the struggle if you can manage a few keepers.  Some of you just make it look like that comes so easy!

Halloween

So it's kind of lame to just be posting our Halloween pictures when I've already put up our Christmas tree (ok, maybe I was a bit overzealous on that one), but our computer memory has been so full it hasn't been letting me download any pictures for the last few weeks.  So alas, here was our Halloween.

Cash wore a Mickey costume to his school party:

He was actually the only one with me when I went to the costume store and when he picked out a superman costume I thought, great, everyone can be superman.  I wasn't about to deal with tears over who got to wear what costume all day.

And yes, I was a big, giant pumpkin.  Because, A. it was a good year to be big and round,  B. I actually also have a picture of my mom dressed up as a pumpkin for Halloween when she was pregnant with me, and C. I was sort of revolting against everyone in line ahead of me that picked out every skimpy costume in the store.  I mean, I know Halloween is basically an excuse for women to wear lingerie and just add some animal ears, but Miami is especially bad.  I was gagging when I took Cash to school and some mom was visiting the classroom that day dressed in just such a costume.  And a different one like that was in there when I picked him up. I mean, come on... it's preschool for heaven's sake.  So yeah, I'll take that big, fat, mom-looking pumpkin.  :)

We went to the trunk-or-treat at church and everyone had a great time.

Sharing some brotherly love...

Cash even had his superman pose perfected:

 

 Halloween night we didn't do much except run around our building and trick or treat to a few neighbors.

Then we went down to south beach to check out the scene.  I had always heard it was crazy on Halloween, but I have to say it even exceeded my expectations of craziness.  

I think we were there like a half hour and only moved about half a block because there were so many people.  And we had to keep stopping to let the boys take pictures with all the random Asians, as usual.

(And with everybody, really.  There weren't many kids down there, so ours were kind of celebrities and everyone wanted their picture.)

And of course it was a hub for everyone flamboyant in Miami.  Ashton was especially fascinated by the zebra man/woman with lighted beady eyes.

And of course it's all fun and games until you're up way past your bedtime, full of sugar, and wind up with sucker stuck in your mop of hair....