the Halloween adventures of Captain Will and his pirate posse

We had a great Halloween, highlighted by a couple fun parties. Last year Will was just barely old enough to understand that there was some reason to be dressing up in costumes, and there was candy. This year, he was very excited to be dressed up (plus he got to hold a "thord" and take it to school) and he was a very active participant in trick-or-treating. Above is a very nice picture at the beginning of the day. Will was, of course, a pirate, Erin dressed as some kind of cat for the morning, and Hallie was a chili pepper. Hallie, like her mother, had several outfits that needed to be worn at some point during the day, so you'll see multiple costume changes in this post.

First stop: Will and Hallie's school for their Halloween party!

The kids got to do a bunch of special activities, like decorate pumpkins and cookies (and eat the cookies).

Here Will's playing "pin the ...mouth?... on the pumpkin"

Then when the parents came to pick everyone up at the end of the day, they had a costume parade!

Here Hallie's showing off costume #2: the classic infant pumpkin outfit.

Here Will's posing with the pumpkin he decorated at school, and two pirate pumpkins we made together. We had to make sure they were all set to impress our trick-or-treaters.

This year some of our neighbors hosted a neighborhood Halloween party. Lots of kids about Will's age and their families congregated at a house with a pirate fort in the backyard, perfect for Cap'n Will! There was even some pirate booty that Will found and got to take home.

Here Will's posing with his best pirate matey.

We had a whole pirate posse at the party. On the left, Erin was a pirate wench, and Hallie dressed as a pirate parrot (ok, so she it was a chicken costume, but she looked so cute nobody minded if we called her our parrot).

Then the kids went out trick-or-treating, followed by the crowd of parents. Will did a great job - he made it all the way around the block, said "thank you" at every house, and was very excited to get so much candy (sadly, most of the candy he got had milk chocolate or nuts in them so they became dad's candy).

After about a half hour, Will had been walking long enough and had to go potty so we thanked and said goodbye to our friends and went home to prepare for our own trick-or-treaters. Just like his mama, Will really enjoyed offering the bowl of candy to the trick-or-treaters, and was very excited whenever someone new came to the door.

Erin always keeps track, and we had a pretty good year for trick-or-treaters - nearly 70 kids came to our door. Good thing Will got so much candy for dad because there was very little left over from our home stash!

pirate attack!

Turns out Will thinks pirates are very cool. He gets really excited when we watch Spongebob together because there's a pirate at the beginning that sings the themesong. Also he and I have been pirate "Arrr!"-ing a lot lately and singing pirate songs (like the Spongebob themesong).

A couple weekends ago we went to a "graduate students with children" event sponsored by UM, where there were several fun events for kids. Will met Pirate Mike, who made him a pirate hat and balloon sword. He likes these props very much and has been playing with them for a couple weeks. The most fun thing to do is chase the cats and try to whomp them with his "piyat" sword. In the video below, Will introduces the poor cats to the game "pirate attack". Not too much fun for them, but hilarious for Erin and I. Duke finally figured out he can hide under the bed to avoid getting whomped with the sword. But he has to hide "pfarr" under the bed, as Will explains in the video.

a pirate party, matey!

The weekend after Will's 3rd birthday, we held a pirate party for captain Will and all his mateys. It was a really great turnout - almost 20 kids and their families came by to join in the fun. We played outside for a couple hours - soccer, tag, and sword fights - while I grilled hotdogs for the kids. Erin made a really impressive pirate cake (above) which was delicious.

The kids ate their lunches inside in the basement, where we set up a "picnic covering" of blankets, expecting (correctly) that the place would get very messy. Then we helped the kids make pirate hats, and decorate them with stickers before singing Will a rousing pirate version of "Happy Birthday". Arrrr!

Birthday boy

A few weeks ago we celebrated Will's 3rd birthday. On the day itself we had a very nice family party, and a week later we had a pirate party for all Will's friends (more on that party in a later post). Anyway, as a 3-year-old, he clearly understands the role of presents in birthday celebrations. Thanks to everyone who sent something - he had a great time opening all his presents and playing with his gifts.

Among some of the cool gifts which we played with right away were a birthday ribbon and a new pirate towel. He wore the ribbon the rest of the day to let everyone know it was his special day.

Check out Will's sweet new guitar! Thanks Grandpa! Dad had some fun with it too.

After a birthday breakfast, we went to the petting zoo. This was the first time we had been to the Domino's Farms zoo in over a year.

It was Hallie's first trip.

We told the petting zoo admissions people that it was Will's big day so they gave him free admission - and a free ticket for a pony ride! He wasn't so sure about it, but we thought about it for awhile and met the horse, then Will decided he was brave enough to ride.

After the pony ride, we headed home for birthday cake. Mom made a sweet rocket ship cake, isn't it impressive? Yes, it is, but wait until you see the pirate cake...

wrapping up AJ's visit

About a month ago Aunt Jenna came to visit. I've been meaning to post the rest of the pictures from that trip, and with an upcoming event sure to generate lots of posts, now's a good time to do that.

We went to Chuck E. Cheese's!

Chuck E. Cheese must pretty heavily sponsor Disney cartoons because there are quite a few commercials that brainwash kids into thinking the restaurant is greatest place on Earth. Will knew about and was excited about Chuck E's for a long time before we decided it would be fun to go when AJ visited. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much, and Jenna and I discussed how we should probably get beer if it was available (it wasn't).

Turns out, it was an AWESOME place to go.
We got some deal that included pizza and drinks and 30 tokens. Those 30 tokens go a long way, as every game required only one to play. We played all kinds of games, it was truly fun for all of four of us.

Those who have not been to Chuck E. Cheese's may not know this but a main reason to go there is to win "tickets" based on how well you play the games. At the end of the night you can trade in the tickets you won for prizes that are fun for a minute but should go immediately in the garage sale bin (or worse) when you get home. When we finally burned through all of our tokens, we had 197 tickets between all of us (mostly due to mom's incredible skee-ball skeelz), but Will had his eye on a 200-ticket pirate set. As it was past bedtime, we were frantically trying to find an inexpensive way to win or con 3 more tickets, and were saved by a father who was there with his litter as he donated 3 of his tickets to our cause.

So Will got to be a fierce pirate. In the picture on the left, he was a little confused about the eye-patch, I think he was trying to close the eye behind the patch but could only close both.

Fun fact: Erin cannot voluntarily close only one eye - she can't wink. We haven't really tried to teach Will to wink but he may have inherited this deficiency. I have teased Erin about this for years and now I can use my jokes all over again ;)

Another day we went for a walk downtown and went to the Dinosaur Museum and got new Michigan sweatshirts (since AJ needed one and Will had outgrown his old one). Will and AJ, who were by this time best buddies, teamed up to fool ol' dad and hid from me under the stairs. I almost had to go home without those two sillies.

epic swordfight

-VS-

"I'M A GUARD!!!"*

"CHA! CHA! CHA!"

"NOW I GOING TO PUSH YOU RIGHT INTO THE DRINK!!!"**

"I'M THE WINNER!!"

*One time when I was having a swordfight with Will, I told him "en garde!" like swordfighter gentlemen do. He got mad and replied: "No! I'm a guard!" So now he thinks you start off swordfights by introducing yourself as a guard.

**In one of Will's favorite books (and songs), Sloop John B, a boy and his grandpa get attacked by pirates on their boat, the Sloop John B. The boy saves the day when he grabs a pirate sword and "I pushed that pirate... right into the drink"