Happy Halloween!

Cal loved trick-or-treating with a little group of his friends this year. We went around to about two blocks' worth of houses, with Cal eating his candy at nearly the rate of receiving it. As you can see from his full mouth, the candy consumption didn't stop once we were back at the house.

Happy Halloween from the Olsens!

More October

October has been filled to the brim with fun activities. Sorry if this post is a bit of a "captioned photo-dump" for the grandparents, but we had a busy month. I have so many photos on my iPhone that are seemingly random, but altogether, it paints a pretty accurate slice of life right now. Enjoy!

One of the things I loved as a child was writing letters to my cousins. I am so happy that Cal and his cousins Brandon & Carson have inherited that joy. Here's Cal opening a Halloween note from Brandon:

My little guy helping me make pizza for dinner one night. (That apron was the best Easter present ever!)

Cal is constantly singing songs or reciting poems, and he caught me off guard one night when he delivered the whole of "Five Little Pumpkins" by memory. I had to get it on video:

Cal is loving preschool, though I feel like we've missed more days than usual due do illness these past few months. Parents were invited to attend class one morning so that the kids could perform what they've been working on. It was pretty awesome watching him do his "zoo-phonics."

After the kids' presentation, we all walked over to a haunted pumpkin patch that the school set up for the little students. They even had a haunted Golden Gate Bridge:

It was so fun seeing how Cal interacts with his classmates and teachers.

That was not the only pumpkin patch we visited this month. Cal and I hit nearly all of them; he liked different things about each one. This one had a train, so I have a feeling it was the favorite.

It also had a pen where you could pet farm animals.

Cal loved this goat, but anytime it would come close, Cal would jump back and wag his finger at it.

Here is Cal as a toilet paper mummy, after a game at our friends' Halloween party. He went as an astronaut this year, and Reed and I were spaceship maintenance crew and NASA scientist, respectively. I loved his costume because it was very easy to see him in the dark -- just look for the kid in the neon orate jumpsuit!

He had a great time carving pumpkins with Daddy. I know I've said it before, but I'll ay it again: Reed is really such a phenomenal dad. Cal absolutely loves spending time with Reed, because Dad just has a way of making all activities more fun.This year was no different.

These next two photos were taken by Cal:

And finally, for your viewing pleasure, some pumpkin carving silliness:

Cal's Halloween Costume

Back at the beginning of October, I took Cal to the Halloween costume store to let him look at all the costumes and try to decide what he wanted to be this year. I walked him down the aisle with all the superhero costumes, and asked him, "Do you want to be this?" as I pointed to Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Power Rangers, Batman, Spiderman, and a whole wall of others that would be sure to impress. And each time I asked, Cal answered with a bored, "Nooooooo...." -- until finally, he pointed and said, "Cal want that!"

Here's what he was pointing to:

I said, a little incredulously, "You want to be a pizza?" He assured me that he did, so I took a look at the costume. It was poorly made, little more than a pizza print on a flimsy poncho. I figured I could make a cuter one for cheap, and so Cal and I went to the fabric store. $6 for felt and glue, and here's what we came up with:

Cal was satisfied, and on Halloween night, I could tell he was proud of his costume. All the little kids could recognize what he was, and his little friends were very excited about his costume, so I think that added to his excitement and pride.

 And of course, getting a bucket full of candy never dampens his mood:

 We went over to a friend's house to trick-or-treat in a group. The moms stayed behind to get a fire going for s'mores (seriously), and the dads took the kids around the neighborhood. Reed said it was a scream. We all definitely had a Halloween hangover the next day from staying up too late, but it was such a fun night for our little pizza boy!

Simple Goings on: October edition

I know I've written about Cal's co-op preschool before, but I had to share some additional photos. He and I are both loving it so much!  I am so grateful for a wonderful, supportive group of friends in my ward. It's fantastic being a part of such an active and vibrant little community of sisters.

In addition, my friend Natalie and I have worked out a weekly, post-preschool swap that is working out fabulously. This week it was my turn to pick up these two and entertain them for a few extra hours while Nat had some free time.

Hard a work on muffin-making!

And thanks to cousin Brandon for the Halloween package, which included these muffin-toothpicks! Here they area after a day or two, after Cal had added an umbrella:

Other fun things we've been doing? Grow capsules in the bathtub, which turned into bats, pumpkins and spiders:

Perusing the Macy's Christmas decorations (already on display! It's not even Halloween yet, people!). The kids were transfixed by these singing/dancing stuffed christmas trees. I mean, who wouldn't be?

Making "monsters" out of healthy snacks (sugar-fast friendly!):

Playing with all the leaves we can find. Cal loves the way the crunch and fly everywhere -- I mean c'mon, it's pretty fun.

Pretending to be a puppy, a mouse, or a squirrel. I'm excited that Cal is getting more interested in imagining and pretending. He has always been very spacial--loves puzzles, blocks, lining things up, etc--but didn't really role play or pretend. Now, he's constantly crawling between my feet and squeaking, saying, "I baby mousie, mama! I want cheese!" 

Speaking of cheese, we've even gone so far as to take the block of parmesan from the fridge (in a ziplock, don't worry) and set it out as bait to catch our hiding mousie. He loves coming out of his hiding place, sneaking up to the cheese for a pretend nibble, and then getting caught by me and Reed, who are always extremely scandalized to see a mouse in our house!

These last three photos are from a cute Halloween lunch we went to with some friends. I loved that we all can up with non-candy items to share. How do you like those bananas? :)

That's it for this week. I know it's not a party-a-minute, but we're enjoying life, one day at a time. :)

Fall Treats

For the last two months, Reed and I have been on a sugar fast. We came home from our campout with friends feeling so "sugared out", and decided to detox with no sugar. I have several family members and friends who have done it, so I got some advice, and read a lot online. I actually really liked doing it!

Anyway, when we reached two months, it was time to start eating sugar again! I decided to make one of our fall favorites with Cal: apple pie caramel apples. Don't they look nice? 

We had a little white chocolate left over in the double boiler, so I decided to make ghost pops like my mom used to every Halloween. Hers always turned out much cuter than ours, but it was still fun.

Cal and Reed had fun eating the treats, but I decided to extend no-sugar for myself indefinitely. It's helped me get in control of my health, so I'm just going to wait to start eating it again. This was definitely a hard treat to resist, though!

Carving Pumpkins

Tonight, Heather came over to help us carve pumpkins with Cal. Can you believe that tonight was Cal's third time carving pumpkins? He was certainly much more involved this time around. We started by cutting a hole in the top of the pumpkin:

Cal immediately saw the danger in the situation and took appropriate precautions:

Next, we removed the guts...

Finally, Meg and Heather cut out the face.

"Sup?"

Heather's dog Winnie was very cooperative throughout the entire photo shoot. Cal...not so much.

We warned Cal not to touch the pumpkin because it was hot. Fortunately, he had a solution: blow on the pumpkins until it cooled down again.