The Ghosts of Halloween Past

AKA the Event the Triggered an Obsession.

So before I start going crazy posting pictures of the kids in their costumes and running around the pumpkin patch, I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane, especially since this is my first Halloween since starting my blog. It all started innocently enough. Jake was about 5 months old. It was around Labor Day and I was out shopping for some colder weather clothes for my lil guy when I ran across a rack of costumes for infants. Without much thought, I decided I might as well grab something for Jake while I was out - a simple Jack-O-Lantern fleece get-up. It felt good to have the purchase taken care of. So here was Jake on his first Halloween with his cousin Madison who had just celebrated her first birthday earlier in the month:

It was shortly after that Halloween that I started scrapbooking. Scrapbooking lead to my desire to have pictures of Jake in themed outfits for each of the holidays, as well as wanting to have good pictures of him in said outfits, which began my picture taking craze. Now, I rely more on my blog and photo books than scrapbooking for lack of time but I am still obsessed with coordinating themed outfits for the holidays and getting good pictures. Thus the birth of an obsession.

On Jake's second Halloween he was 18 months and I was about 8 weeks pregnant with Jadyn. Since I was not feeling that well myself, I failed to miss the obvious symptoms Jake was displaying the morning of the holiday as we hurried off to his class party. I managed to take one good picture of him in his race car driver costume before he puked all over it and himself in front of all his classmates in the middle of the party. Poor lil guy:

However, after coming home and taking a long nap, Jake was feeling much better. His costume may have been soiled but not his spirit:


By the following year, I had two kids to coordinate. Jake was now 2 years old and Jadyn was 5 months old. Someone had given me an adorable sunflower bunting for Jadyn so I came up with the idea for Jake to be a farmer:



Meanwhile, we began another tradition of putting the kids in their Halloween outfits and going to the pumpkin patch and so began the battle of getting decent photos of the kids together. Although not taken until we got back from the trip, this picture is one of my favorites of both kids together:
Along with this one of Jadyn smiling:


Which brings us to last year's trip to the pumpkin patch:


And their coordinating Halloween costumes as a Redskins football player and cheerleader:


So now you know my dirty little secret. I am obsessed with coordinating outfits for holidays and getting good pictures of the kids together to scrapbook, even though I have not scrapbooked in over 2 years and even though it is nearly impossible to get good pictures of the kids together. LOL! And you also may recall that the kids Halloween costumes will not be coordinating this year as we let them pick their own this year. I have a story about how that turned out so stay tuned for this year's pictures.