Halloween, Lantern & Ezra's New Passion

Ezra, his friend Liam, and I collaborated on our costumes this year. I never got  a good shot of us all together unfortunately, but on the car ride over you can see Darth and his Stormtrooper (sort of).

I was Princess Leia. Too bad you can't see my blaster, it was sweet!

This was the jack-o-lantern of my design, a little goofy I admit.

And this was of Ezra's design. A side note, I just composted both of them and Ezra's was full of water and dead slugs. I guess they preferred his.

After trick or treating he organized his loot. It was a pretty good haul in as you can see. Grand total: 136. He said he doesn't want to eat any though, he just wants to keep accumulating more and more every year. This sense of responsibility is impressive, yet I wonder where he gets it from.

At school Ezra made this lantern and there was a lantern walk where all the students gathered at a park to sing songs and walk around the park with their lit lanterns. I had really wanted to go, but was unfortunately to ill to make it. Ezra did a mini lantern walk in front of our house.

Lantern detail.

Here's Ezra's new passion: rock climbing! Surprise, surprise, he's a natural.

Side note: he's also wearing his latest favorite outfit. Dinosaur hoodie compliments of Grandpa and blue velour pants compliments of the free clothes swap at my university.

Success!

In those velour pants he flies down this slide!

Another Weekend at the Pumpkin Patch

I tried to take a picture of all of us, but only managed to capture Ezra's sweet face.

Luckily a kind man took this one and got us all in the corn maze glory! You may recognize Tom and Alex, as I have known them for many years now. It was great to hang out with them again!

Searching for the perfect pumpkin.

Relaxing on the shores.

Corn Maze

To get to Sauvie Island one must cross the Historic St Johns Bridge.

Once you arrive you must visit the enormous pigs. Some parents were telling their children not to pet the pig. I encouraged Ezra and then asked him to describe how she felt. I got some glares. Poo poo.

I suppose those same fuddy duddies wouldn't let their child eat a doughnut covered in frosting, oreo cookie crumbles and then drizzled with peanut butter either! Life is short people.

At least Maya and Jupiter know what's up. By the way the doughnut Jupiter is eating is indeed in the shape of a blunt. Maybe we are pushing the envelope a little.

Sunshine and sugar: yes please!

Love the pony ride. Although it made me think that we should go on an actual horse ride, not just in a circle.

He gazes out on the fields of pumpkins from the tower in the corn maze...

Ezra found some corn and figured out a handy way to carry it. He's loaded!

Loaded corn pants from behind. Yes I was laughing my head off.

Then he collected so much corn that he couldn't fit it into his pants.

So he turned his hat and coat into the means for corn transportation. 

Ezra's father proudly proclaimed to be a "Hombre de Maiz" (Man of Corn), which is a Guatemalan identity having to do with tortillas, tamales and all other corn related delicacies. I like it when I see Ezra expressing Guatemalan traits (loving corn, not putting it in your pants, that's a variation exclusive to my darling boy).

While Ezra was collecting the corn I got to watch this new movie, Corn Shadows.

A post is never complete without a self taken picture of myself. This is how you hold your kid's drink while in the portapotty. Turns out he gets the weirdo from me.

Trillium Lake Hike

Today was absolutely gorgeous, so we took a short trip up to Trillium Lake which is very close to Mt. Hood. The lake is pristine, the air is fresh, and our friend Nikkie came with us and she is amazing!

Here she and Ez are talking about a time when Nikkie saw a black bear.

Ezra suggested that she should have "dressed up like a girl bear" so that the black bear would fall in love with her instead of attacking her. (It didn't attack her, black bears don't really do that.)

It is so fun throwing stuff in the water and making big splashes!

It is also fun to draw on rocks and your own face with charcoal left over from a campfire.

We ate lunch elsewhere.

School has started, but we are still pretending it's summer...

Last weekend we went to Oaks Park Amusement center with Maya and had tons of fun! You couldn't tell it from this picture of course. But I swear this train ride was full of smiles, waves, and Cheetos.

Very frightening shot of Ezra the dragon rider! He has however decided that the merry-go-round is boring. He is at the age when the 'little kid' rides are too boring but he's not quite brave enough for the next step up.

Maya, posing on Violet (that's what she named the kitty cat).

I don't like this ride so much. So Ezra is shooting from the front at the kid that's in front of him who's shooting back from his rocket, and Maya's shooting from the back at the kid that's behind who's also shooting back from his rocket. Children riding in circles shooting at each other. Not so much.

They loved this one! The speed boats go up and down and around and around. They'd get off, exit, and get right back in line to get on again. They rode on it at least ten times.

Ezra, the concerned driver and Maya, the oblivious navigator. Oh and I guess they're driving in England?

I did go on this ride with them (twice) which left me feeling ill. It's a hot air balloon and it goes up up up and the wheel in the center makes it go around around around.

So determined to make his mama sick.

Another day we went to Oswald West park on the coast with Nikkie. It was a lovely day, which is somewhat rare on the Oregon coast. Nikkie brought her kite and Ezra got to be quite the expert!

He also got very good at slicing cheese. He said, "I sliced enough to share with everyone."

This shaggy carpeting on the rocks (moss) is very slippery.

Love the sunset at the beach.

Nikkie took Ezra climbing and tide pooling, allowing me some time to relax, watch the sunset, and take pictures of myself.

On the way home we stopped at the DQ and finished off a fabulous day with some cheeseburgers, french fries and dilly bars.

Btw I know I really need to take some pictures of Ezra's new kindergarten class and write something about it. I missed the boat on the first day pictures, but Ezra was kind of nervous (so was I!) and he hates having his picture taken so I made the executive decision to forgo that tradition this year. But I will snap some shots soon I promise! I will just say that he is enjoying kindergarten very much, "It's lovely!" he says, and he's made some new friends, learned how to make bread and soup, and how to fold a blanket.