A Roarrrring Good Time

Two of the few pix of Noah's first Halloween costume:-). He was an adorrrrrrable little lion, and despite my previous expectations, wore his costume quite PROUDly all night. He fussed a bit when I first put the head piece on, but then seemed to forget about it the rest of the night. Matt even humored me by dressing up as "scarecrow" and I the "tin man". I have withheld those pictures for our sake as well as yours. Noah loved watching everyone dressed up and all the sights, sounds, and silliness of the evening. He enjoyed his first hayride with Grandma Hays and was definitely (one of) the mane attraction(s), tee hee. My lion humor is really too much, isn't it. Here's a few in his holiday p.j.s...

We are having a great week together. My mom is here for a week and it is sooooo nice to have her here to help out as well as hang out with and spend time with her little grandson. What good timing, too. Matt and I spent several hours on Monday, Tues., and then Wed. getting ready for our church's party--we hosted a Kids' Carnival (as every previous year) and Indoor Trick-or-Treating Night (new this year), and it went quite well, I must say. Matt was basically in charge of the games side/teens and I...well, the rest. It was the first time we tried to get our whole church involved, and like can be expected, took more time and work than you think it should. It turned out to be a much needed event in our community because it rained off and on all night. (I can't honestly say that I didn't pray FOR the rain, so that we'd be able to make contacts with our community...). I was glad we'd planned on the trickortreating thing. Our church people sponsored different doors in the building and decorated them, then passed out candy to the kiddos as they came by. We had an excellent turnout, for our church---75 to 80 kids, plus parents plus church folk...around 225 people on the church property during the night. Yeah, I was SHOCKED. It was pretty awesome. A bit chaotic, especially when the rain started and the people came in droves, but no one complained to me about their soggy hotdogs. Fun was had by all.

The only regret I have on the night, well, make that two, 2)My last minute costume idea came together nicely except that my "grey" facepaint was a bit darker (blacker) than I imagined it to be and I actually SCARED people with it...(who's ever heard of a scary tin man? HA!) and the real regret...1)My mom ended up holding Noah more than Matt or I did during the night, and even though I got SOME time with him, it still left me wishing that my/our jobs didn't always creep into family time like they do. We had a good first Halloween, a GREAT one, but I just wish I could have delighted in my little one a little more...