Halloween - Part II of IV

I hope you are all enjoying the photos as much as we are. I just keep staring at them. Man I love those kids:) It is probably time for a bit of context for all the photo fun. The first section of photos are from the annual Palfreyman Pumpkin carving festivities. This is only our second year to participate, but as you can see it was a wild time. Something about the ever increasing number of little people increases the adventure. Gavin (under Jennie's direction) made some amazing pumpkin soup --cooked in actual pumpkins!! It was incredible and I'm hoping to convince them to share the recipe soon. We had pumpkin cupcakes courtesy of the Hoppers as well. Pumpkin carving ranged from careful creations using templates to Brent's free-hand pumpkin. With two pregnant ladies there was plenty of discussions of babies as well. Peter did great with Maggie and had her asleep in his arms quickly. He is ready for Bethany and his little girl to arrive in just a few more days! The night ended early with little people bedtimes, but the crew was all set to re-gather the following day.

Friday was the Lam's annual Halloween party. We will likely usually miss this as we do our trick-or-treating on Halloween in our own neighborhood. However, this year Norman moved its trick-or-treating to Friday to avoid Game-Day traffic and other problems so we could do both! The Lams are also fabulous hosts and had an amazing spread to choose from. Tom even found some wonderful cheese for me:) (Really for everyone, but I like to think I'm special!). We tested out the costumes for the first time and B made it much further trick-or-treating than I would have imagined given his cumbersome costume. The costume creation deserves its own post so more on that later. M and I didn't go very far as it was pretty cool for our delicate butterfly. We spent the remainder of the evening inside with the kids playing, adults talking, and much observation of the costuming of the kids at the door. We had a great time and I'm so glad we got to participate this year!

Ps. For those wondering about M and two trips to Norman in two days. Her car-seat tolerance is somewhat improving. Neither day did she cry much on the way down. She did, however, pretty much cry the entire way back both days which was miserable for everyone concerned. I think overall she is getting better in the car, but still has plenty of rough times. Her dangling butterfly friend from the STL does seem to buy us a little time though which I appreciate. Here's hoping for continued improvement as I see a lot of driving in the next couple months.