The Secret of the Spoiled Labradors: November 2013

Last year, we had an impromptu Halloween party and hayride. It was so much fun, we decided to do it again, a little less impromptu this time (by which I mean, instead of deciding to throw a party 4 days in advance, we decided to throw a party 10 days in advance). It was another success, as evidenced by these pictures that I managed to take (it's hard to host a party, a hayride, manage a 2-year-old on Halloween, and take pictures)!

We loaded up the hayride, mostly with Moms and kiddos (most of the Dads stayed behind to guard the house ... and the chili :o))

Our fearless driver, and his assistant - Jones was way more excited about the Ranger than the hayride, in the beginning, and insisted on driving.

Our first official trick-or-treat!

Jones, to be honest, did not care a thing about trick-or-treating. He got himself a few pieces of candy from the first few houses, and that was enough for him. After that, he just wanted to play in the hay, and in the Ranger, and he didn't give a hoot about the trick-or-treating experience.

Something else he did not care a thing about: his pirate hat for his costume. These are the only pictures of him wearing it. He refused, REFUSED, to wear it, and because I figured it was more important that he had fun than if he wore the hat, I let him be a hat-less pirate (this was tough for me because I was so excited about the cute costume, and then the little toot didn't cooperate with me).

Seriously, the time lapse on those photos is like 5 seconds. That's the only amount of time he would allow that hat on his head.

Trick-or-Treating!

Jones wasn't the only one who was content to take his candy and then just hang out on the hayride.
This is his buddy Jett, looking super cute in his Frankenstein costume (and, you'll note, peaceably
wearing his head gear ... Jones needs to follow Jett's lead).

Daddy, Jones, Uncle Ed, and Anna Kay ... this was pretty much Jones' demeanor when you tried to get him to do anything ... he's all about it having to be his idea in order to do something!

Satisfied with only a couple of houses, he headed back to the Ranger to have a sucker!

I think this is a cute picture, Jones and his buddy Kate with their treats, back in the hayride.

When I say Jones wasn't alone in his desire to just hang out in the hay after trick-or-treating, I promise I'm not exaggerating! These are pics of all of the kiddos hanging out in the hayride while we waited for some of the other, older kids to do their trick-or-treating. They were all content to climb around on the hay and just eat a little of the candy and hang out together (and be cute, too)!

Jones and Kate - they are so cute, they go to school together, and their teachers told me and Kate's mom that they spent all day at school on Halloween talking about the party that night, and then when Kate left, she waved to Jones and said, "See you at the party!" and he said back, "See you at the party!" So cute.

We tried to take a group picture. I love the fact that Jones had, at this point, totally taken off every piece of his costume (we moved on from "no hat!" to "no pants! no shirt! no socks! no shoes!" until we were down to just the undershirt and underwear), and was unwilling to sit still for a group shot. I also love that all of the girls are princesses - so cute!

Happy Halloween from the Ward family!

For my mother's birthday, I purchased a session with a photographer to take pictures of our whole extended family: the Wards, the Tanners, and the Scroggins (if you're keeping score that's me and Alan and Jones, my parents and my aunt, Sydney, or T, and my grandparents). So, in September, we all met up to take those pictures. It will shock no one that I haven't ordered anything yet, but I am going to (you may recall that it took me like 7 months from the time we took family pictures the last time, to order anything ... I'm determined to do better than that on this occasion). You can see the professional results here, and here are some candids of the whole affair, which was fun, but wore me out because Jones was pretty wild during the whole thing. All of the people around, a new and different setting, a photographer giving instruction and moving around and generally being interesting ... he just about couldn't handle it, and throw in the fact it was right before lunch, I think we are pretty lucky to have gotten the pictures that we did.