October Recap...

October was a fun month for us. It was not extremely eventful but we did have some fun times. We went to College Station to see Uncle Marc and his girlfriend, Becky, on Oct. 17th. Shelby adores Uncle Marc and had a great time with him. He took us to the fire station where he use to work (he is at a different station now but this one was closer to his house) so Shelby could see all of the cool trucks and equipment. Then they took us to a local pumpkin patch where A&M students were raising money for the Habitat for Humanity. Shelby really liked the "bumpy" pumpkins the best. Then we went to a really nice park and walked around and fed some ducks and turtles. It was a great day.

Then on Thursday, Oct. 30th, Shelby had her Halloween party at school. Most of her classmates wore their costumes but she was just not into the costume idea at all... so she wore her Minnie Mouse Halloween shirt from Nanny (my mom). She looked cute anyway... but her attitude was not so cute after eating all those sweets at the party (lol)... Sugar overload!

Then yesterday was Halloween day and also happened to be my day off from work... so we spent the day carving the pumpkin and cooking the seeds (which I can never get to taste right, according to Don)- this year they were too burnt. Anyway, then we decided to get dressed for Halloween when Don got home from work. We were invited to our friends, the Ista's, house for dinner and trick-or-treating. I was so excited that Shelby was starting to warm up to the idea of wearing her costume (FINALLY)... She even let me paint her face! She wanted to be a black dog for Halloween and I had a book that showed me how to paint the doggy face. Shelby laughed the whole time, excited about painting her face... Until...... she turned to see herself in the mirror. She broke into hysterics when she saw her painted face. I think she thought it was going to look like that forever or something. Oh Man! So Don came to her rescue and said his usual phrase, "I'm sorry Mommy is torturing you", and washed it all off. You'd think he would have been her hero, but of course she was crying after he washed it off because she wanted her face painted again (I don't know how much more of these toddler mood swings I can handle). LOL

So eventually we were off to the Ista's house... Only to realize, once we were on the other side of town, that we left Shelby's shoes and socks, as well as her candy bucket at home... So we had to stop at a resale shop by Don's mom's house, to get more shoes... they had to be black to match the costume.. But I found some in her size for $2.33! How awesome is that?! So we finally made it to the Ista's and had some awesome homemade sloppy joes and Jane so graciously talked Shelby into wearing her collar, ears and tail and practiced trick-or-treating with her at her house first. Then we were off! Shelby was very timid for the first three houses and didn't want to say trick-or-treat and barely whispered thank you when she got her candy.. But once she caught on to the candy concept she started dragging Grandma (Don's mom), saying "more candy" and by the 5th or 6th house she was a trick-or-treating pro. It was so cute! The Ista's neighborhood is in the Historic Heights area of Houston and there are a ton of little children and also many adults that got dressed up in costumes, so this was a perfect place to go trick-or-treating. Jane and I decided we should come to their house every year for Halloween. We had a blast. Shelby ate one tootsie roll and that was it. She likes candy but she didn't fuss when I told her one peice was enough. I am so thankful she doesn't fight me on that... yet. Well, we had a blast... here are some of my favorite photos from these events: