Happy Halloween from the Youngs!

It's no secret. We love Halloween in this house. This year our Halloween festivities were a bit understated. We didn't get the decorations down from the attic because between me not be allowed to lift much and Steven hurting his back, we just couldn't do it. It felt a little funny not having our decorations out, but it is what it is and next year we plan to be back to normal.

We did, however, start our festivities with our annual pumpkin carving. Kenzie was super excited about picking out a pumpkin this year. She has been really into pumpkins for some reason and all the "funny faces" on them. We have a neighbor with a ton of fake pumpkins outside their house. We usually have to walk down there at least every few days for her to get a look at all of them. Any time she sees a pumpkin she gets excited so we hoped she would be just as excited about our pumpkin.

In true 2-year-old fashion though, once we got around to carving our own pumpkin, the novelty had started to wear off. Last year she was really into pulling all the guts out of the pumpkin. This year, not so much. She did "help" Daddy though by keeping him company. Once we were done with the pumpkin she didn't seem overly enthused. We put the pumpkin in the fridge for the night. Lo and behold, on Halloween morning she wanted nothing more than to have me open the fridge every 5 seconds so she could see her pumpkin. I guess she is back to liking pumpkins at this point. She is a mess.

Because we were unable to get our Halloween decorations down this year, we were also unable to get our carving kit down so we ended up buying a new one. I think our pumpkin turned out pretty nice this year.

I have it figured that this might be my last year dressing Kenzie however I want. While that makes me a little sad because I will have to relinquish control, I can't wait to see what she wants to be in the coming years and watch her imagine run wild. Until then, I went all out this year (again) to make sure that she was absolutely adorable and that when she looks back at pictures in future years she knows that we put a lot of time and effort into her.

This year we decided to make Kenzie the main character from my absoulute favorite movie every. Dorothy Gale from the Wizard of Oz! And Will debuted this year as Toto.

Before heading out Trick or Treating we made Kenzie take a few pictures outside. Last year was actually much easier. 2-year-olds are not great picture takers. At least mine isn't the best. She says "Cheeeeeese" for me... but won't look at us often and she has crazy "cheese" faces. I love her little "cheese" face though...

This is the look of a candy crazed Dorothy

And the "Are we done yet, Mom?" face...

Girl after my own heart. It's all about the shoes.

Kenzie LOVED trick or treating this year. She kept asking me if she could ring more doorbells and "get more candy?" It was too funny. When we got home we let her have two pieces of candy... but I think we are going to have to hide the remainder of it. Haha. She loved handing out candy too.

Tomorrow is the Fall Festival at our church. Kenzie, Steven, and I are definitely going. Nana is actually here because she wanted to Trick or Treat with us so she might end up watching Will. We want him to go but we are having our first cold days of the season and we are debating taking him out in the cold. We might be able to take him, but we will see how it goes. I know Kenzie will have a blast though, just like she did last year.

Happy Halloween from the Youngs! We hope you enjoyed your day as much as we did!