Hawolleen

Yes, I do know how to spell "Halloween". But Juan Pablo calls it "Hawolleen" and I love it. He's actually pronounced it correctly a couple times now, and it makes me sad...he's growing up too fast.

We definitely celebrated lots and lots of "Hawolleen" this year. We started about a week before the actual day, with another trip to Jenny's, this time to pick out a pumpkin. As always, the pumpkin donuts were delicious, and Juan Pablo had a great time with all the farm animals. In fact, he even gave communion to the donkeys...we were watching them eat, and all of the sudden I see him run up to one of them with a roundish-shaped leaf in his hand. He held it out to the donkey and said, "Body of Christ. Amen." At which the donkey promptly ate the leaf. Must have been a Catholic donkey!
The next day, I decided to go out to Wasem's to pick apples with Juan Pablo. I realize this is not necessarily a Halloween activity, but it's a fall thing, so close enough. We went raspberry and blueberry picking earlier in the summer, and it was definitely a hit. Jeff and I picked lots of berries, while Juan Pablo ran around, singing and eating lots of berries. Apple picking worked out pretty much the same way. I picked half a bushel, while Juan Pablo ran around singing and eating apples. It makes him so happy, that sometimes I wonder if we should just move out to a farm...
The day before Halloween I took Juan Pablo trick-or-treating on Main Street. It took him a little while to catch on to the concept. Delayed gratification is not something two-year-olds understand very well, so at first he wanted to eat every piece of candy as soon as he got it. I convinced him to wait a while, and eventually he saw his candy bucket start to fill up, which was very exciting. For both of us.

It was a good thing he got some practice, because we then went trick-or-treating again Saturday morning at the Farmer's Market with Juan Pablo's friend Maya. He was already a pro, and knew exactly how to say "To-to-teat!" ("Trick or treat!") and "Ta tu!" ("Thank you!"). Saturday afternoon Jeff helped Juan Pablo carve his pumpkins...
...and then I took him trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We may have overdone the whole trick-or-treating thing, because he was not interested at all in stopping for candy. He stopped at four houses in the three blocks between our house and my parents' house. For just four houses though, he actually picked up quite a bit of candy. Apparently being little and cute is always worth at least two pieces of candy. Either that or the people giving out candy know that it's actually the parents who are going to eat most of it, so they throw in one piece for mom and one for dad.
We did let Juan Pablo eat some of his candy, and two weeks later, there's even still some left for him to enjoy. Definitely one very happy little tiger!