Happy Halloween!

Say hello to Brother George and Brother George!

Our church held a Trunk or Treat on Halloween night as an outreach event. After doing the walk in our neighborhood and my friend Teresa's neighborhood last year, it was really nice to have the kids in a small, contained area while they got their candy. Plus they had games, popcorn, cotton candy, and Caleb's favorite, "sip". That's anything carbonated.

Caleb loves Diego and Bot the Builder, but his favorite person in Alabama is our pastor, George Whitten. Every time we walk in the doors of the church, Caleb asks to "go see bro George!". So we figured, why not let him dress up as our pastor for the festivities. A few trips to several consignment stores snagged us a good suit, a sale at Kohls for the shirt and tie, some "silver" hairspray, and a pair of glasses (from Build a Bear Workshop, no less), and we were all set. Oh, and a few minutes with my printer at home for the name tag.

Brother George was pretty surprised to see a smaller version of himself walk up when we were gathering for prayer beforehand. Caleb walked right up to him, and said "I'm just like you!"

They had to pose for several pictures.

I'd picked up a "princess" treat bucket for Anna. She liked it so much that when she got up from her nap, she got dressed in her pinkest princess dress, put on a crown, and came to show me her costume. I'd bought a different dress for her to wear, butf she insisted. So we fixed her hair, added some "rapunzel" exensions (a hairclip she'd gotten at Libby Lu), and got ready to go. The shoes were my idea - I thought the high heels would get old after a while.

I'd told her that we were going to get there early, so she brought her markers and her coloring book. She spent about 15 minutes finishing her picture before she came out of the truck. She had a ball once things started rolling, doing a lot of things on her own, and gathering as many treats as she could fit in her bucket. She came up to me several times to show me how much she'd collected. When Jerry got there, they had fun running around together.

Looks like we're doing a dance in this picture. Caleb just flitted about the whole evening. He'd go play on the playground a little, try to snitch some gum from the duck pond game, and then search out whoever had Tootsie Rolls. They are his favorite candy at the moment.

Can you see Anna in this picture? She didn't stick around much for pictures. She wanted to fill that bucket!

I get the urge to shout "Show me the money!" every time I see Caleb in these glasses. There's a strong resemblance to the kid on Jerry Maguire, isn't there?

The first time Caleb showed Jerry these glasses, he told him, "Daddy, I have glasses just like you do!" He was so proud. HeE loves to wear them around the house. Funny, when you don't need 'em, they're the greatest thing since sliced bread. How much do you want to bet he'll hate them if he ever needs them? Given that Jerry and I are both blind as bats, it seems a little inevitable.

Caleb had to go visit his buddy several times. When people asked who he was (he'd dumped the name tag pretty quickly), he'd say "I'm Bro George!" or "I'm Bro George Caleb!"

I think he'd just spotted the bin of treats when I snapped this shot.

Of course, Daddy's still his very favorite person!

The darker it got, the colder it got. Jerry manned the trunk of our truck for the last little bit, and Anna wanted a little snuggle.

Daddy's little princess! She told him the other night that she was going to marry him when she grew up.