Pumpkin Walk

Halloween week is upon us. I say week because like many other holidays Halloween is spreading it's wings and lasting days and days. Yesterday Zachary's school had his school Halloween party, then later that evening was East Lansing annual "Pumpkin Walk".

The downtown business district in East Lansing graciously open their doors to the children. They dress up and hand out candy (and sometimes coupons along with the candy). The sidewalks are jammed with children and adults getting the jump on Halloween. You can't walk a few stores without seeing someone you know, chatting with the parents and complementing the kids costumes. It's fun. You see kids you know who aren't in your neighborhood. A local B and B does it up big and turns the whole thing into OZ complete with the yellow brick road and all the characters.

It is always on a Thursday, at least as long as we have been attending. Which makes it after Daniels regular Thursday swim. Our friends who we talk to all the time are also heading out to the same event after us, so Zachary and his friend Emma both have their costumes in tow. Therefore, photo ops are always in store. We decided that by the time they graduate from high school we'll have a wall of photos of them together in their costumes. (I'm kidding myself that this will continue forever you understand!) Here are Emma and Zach posing together. Emma was Michael Jackson and Zachary was an undead rocker...or "dead Slash" as I heard some people say.....

As you can see, Zachary fully embraces Halloween. He goes for costumes that are the complete opposite of him. He really really gets into it....

After swimming we went to the Pumpkin walk. Daniel dressed into his costume. He LOVES his costume this year. After years of Daniel refusing to put on costumes, refusing to ring door bells and say "trick or treat", the past few years he has progressively gotten into it. Here we are at age 13 and he is finally in full on Halloween mode. The fact that he was taller and bigger than 95% of the people handing out the candy, means nothing to him. He is in his GLORY. It is fun to watch. I mean really fun to watch.

The little little kids who were out last night, would look up at Daniel and be in awe. They thought he was a "real" clown. They'd say, "mommy look at the clown, hi clown, wave at me clown!" "Shake my hand clown" and my favorite, "can I honk your nose?" Daniel and I were sitting on a bench at the end of the night. We were tired and waiting for my husband to come out of one of our favorite restaurants with food to go. A little boy say us and was giggling up a storm. He was circling us and asked if he could grab Daniel's nose. Daniel says, "look it honks" and Daniel honked it. (HE LOVES THIS FEATURE) then the boy asked if he could and Daniel leaned forward so he could. He made that kids day. And they both made mine. He somehow came alive socially under that clown costume. Here he is on the bench. It was really something. He usually does well with 3 and 4 year olds since really, they have a lot in common. Daniel still enjoys a lot of the same things as kids that age and they think it's amazing this giant person enjoys it.

It was really an amazing night. We were all exhausted. Thankfully, the school had today off. The boys slept in until 9:30 (YAHOO FOR ME!) and got rested up. After all, tomorrow we get to dress up and do it all again! But this time. . . he says he wants his face painted. . . we'll see how that goes! That would be another first for Daniel, but he's determined, so somehow I think he'll do it. He's already told me he will have a white face, red smile and blue triangle on his eyes....the kid has vision!