All Hallow's Ween

I was ready for Halloween to be over, but we had a really fun time this year. Gigi just keeps injecting the fun back into life, over and over again. Her favorite new word is "party!" and we give her a lot of opportunities to use it.

The week before Halloween we went with Kim, Kinsey and Kaitlyn to the same Gourd Farm we visited last year, and I think it's one of our favorite holiday traditions. We could have stayed all day. This year the farm featured a corn maze...


Gourds, gourds, gourds and of course, the hayride...


Plus tractors to drive, and lots of things to climb on. Gigi is starting to love climbing, and sliding, and swinging, and I'm learning how to repress my urge to follow her monkey antics with my hands hovering a few inches from her, ready to catch her if she falls. Instinctively I think I am one of "those" type of parents, but I'm learning to chill and back off a bit. I don't think you'd notice, with how independent she is, but what can I say? I just breathe a bit deeper when she has two feet on the ground.


Halloween Night was really fun as well. In Carrboro, our neighbor hippie town, they do a free Halloween festival each year, so we went and met our friends after an early supper of warm chicken soup and cranberry orange bread at Tutu's house. Gigi was a garden fairy, or that's what I liked to call her. She had wings, a flower crown and fairy skirt from Becca's dress-up bin, but since it was a cool, rainy night, her costume was a bit lost in the effort of being warm. But that didn't put a damper on the evening...


There were tons of games to play, and I loved that the festivities were completely free, and that they gave small prizes instead of candy. The only activity we went to that had sugar was the cookie walk, and Gigi won a cookie and munched on it the entire evening. We bought bags of popcorn and hot chocolate for 50 cents each, and had a great time. Below are our friends Olivia, Stan, Emerson and Becca, who live in Carrboro and joined us for the festivities.


And finally, we got home and decided to Trick or Treat in the small loop around our street. There were about 8 houses with their porch lights still on, and it was perfect! Just a few houses, a chance to meet our neighbors, a taste of Trick or Treating for Gigi, and a few pieces of candy for us to eat later that night. Gigi couldn't quite say "Trick or Treat", so we just had her cut to the chase with "Treat!". It worked every time. She had two pieces of chocolate when we got home, and fell happily into bed.