Our best Halloween to date.

No offense to JJ and our parents but this is truly the best Halloween P and I have had to date. Yeah we did the Knott's Scary Farm thing for more years than we care to admit. At the time we thought (and we are sure JJ agrees since he was there) they were the best Halloweens ever. But this Halloween is what P had been waiting for all his life. He did introduce JJ to the magic that is the Scary Farm, but at 13 JJ was way pass feeling the Halloween magic. When we moved to northern CA we saved like crazy to make our family pilgrimage to the Farm. It was our thing, our island of three thing.

Then SS came along and P appointed himself our daughter's spiritual guide. Before you go into a daddy explains Christianity to his daughter aw moment,let me tell you that P's gospel has been ALL about Halloween. God? Nah, Jesus? Who is that dude? But our daughter is well versed in everything Halloween. That is why this year was a big deal for P. SS chose her costume for the very first time. If her choice surprises you then you have not been following our daughter's latest obsession.

SS was supposed to be a Lady Bug for her first Halloween home. We purchased her cute as hell LB costume two years before we met her. Then at the last minute P decided to drop $50 on a duck costume to honor SS's first English word, and paid an even more obscene fee to have it delivered overnight. I held my tongue because I knew what this meant to P. SS's first trick or treat experience was at the local mall, indoor, suffocating, shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of people and way too overstimulating for SS. We kept her in the stroller the entire time to cut down on the stimuli.

The plan was for last year to take her in her pirate costume to downtown Chico. It is a college town about 90 minutes from our home. College kids take Halloween seriously. As we all know I screwed up last year and had a perforation in my colon that necessitated emergency surgery. But SS still wowed the staff at the hospital with her pirate cuteness.

As we have posted SS is an a Buzz kick. Bless P that he did not have the usual Princess dream for his daughter. I was not thrilled to have her wear so much white because the possibilities for staining were plenty. We know we are biased but she was the cutest Buzz there. We were very surprised about the reaction she got from people, there is nothing fancy about her costume, it is a store bought, run of the mill, mass produced costume. SS was eating up all the attention and was beaming whenever someone called her Buzz. I just hung back and watched a beaming P enjoy his trick or treat outing with his very own super hero. P insisted in getting the gloves that were sold separately (as were the wings). The gloves are one size fits all and our baby girl has the tiniest fingers, but the fact that the gloves were too big did not dampen SS's enjoyment. She even pretended to shoot lasers from her arms at passerbys.

We had the best time ever, and although SS won't remember the first year when she really got Halloween, we will never forget it.

SS with M (P's coworker) last Friday, our ham was into her role as cutest super hero ever and posed with her fans.

This one is so going to be on SS's calendar.

OMG! I had never been escorted by a real life super hero!

Monkey King Buzz Lightyear Firefighter Hero. Wowza.

If we ever get a dog it will be a Basset Hound. This family invited SS to pet their dog. Their dog is one year older than their oldest child and they have had him since he was a puppy. It was their first child. P talked to them for a while about how the dog meshed with their children and they were full of compliments about that breed for a child, especially young ones.

This teen just had to have a picture of Buzz. I was able to let my neurotic side go with this costume and because of the occasion. There are a lot of people out there with SS's picture, but no one will ever recognize her in real life with her head covered. Besides, it was only fair to oblige since we took many pictures of costumes we liked. And yes, I am that neurotic about my kids, even my adult son.

Buzz and Jesse.

Buzz listened to Yoda's wisdom and rewarded him with candy. Baby Yoda's parents were blown away that SS would give her precious candy away. That's our girl, yesterday she would not give her Baba a bite of her gigantic cookie, today she gave candy away to strangers. Gotta love her.

SS hamming it up for a a group Asian college kids who were taking pictures of the "little dude" in the cool Buzz costume.

Proud Baba of a super hero, it's a tough job but P is up to the task.

P had to have a picture of the cutest Asian calf he has ever seen.

Watching the costume contest.

Super hero meeting. SS gave the boys some of her candy, such a kind soul. The boys spoke Spanish and SS used her hola and adios for the second time this afternoon. Glad to know that after two years of hearing her Mama yap in Spanish she has a two word vocabulary. OK, just kidding, don't want P to get mad at me, she has more than two words, maybe five.

Being a super hero is very demanding, you have to take a nap when evil is taking a break.

Even super heroes need some down time.

Spookomotive train ride.

We have been laying low for the past two weeks. First we were concentrating on working on SS's adjustment to school. She is doing very well at school, not eating, but we can always feed her at home. At home she is as clingy as she was when we came home from China. It can be very exhausting, but we expected some regression. I am glad we chose half days to begin her transition. Then last week SS (and I) got a nasty cold, again to be expected as she is among a bunch of colossal germ carriers. We have been staying home, keeping her from the nasty rain, because we wanted to make sure that she would be healthy for Halloween.

Our neighbors have a lame skeleton outside and SS is terrified of the lame looking thing. As much as we are itching to get out the fab decorations Grand Min and Nana gave P, the kid dictates what we can do. We will try next year, but it was not wise to exacerbate SS's fears. Kudos to P because he was dreaming of finally getting the whole haunted house scary look this year. The man even has a fog machine people (we got it dirt cheap on an after Halloween sale), that is how serious he is about Halloween. The things we do for love, or fear of the nice county social worker showing up at our door.

We decided to combine SS's love of trains with some mild Halloween fun and headed to Sacramento for SS's first Spookomotive ride. The plan was to go last week, but SS was not well and would not have enjoyed it. Children under 5 and under ride free on coach but pay full price on the first class car, where we wanted to ride. When I requested three tickets the clerk informed me that SS paid full price. I looked at P (I was OK with coach) and he said he did not care he wanted the first class car. The clerk looked at me incredulously and said "you want to pay that to take her? Why don't you wait until you can come alone with your husband so you can enjoy it." I explained to the nice lady that we would not enjoy the ride unless SS was with us. Seriously, what is the big deal, my husband is a Halloween freak. She then charged me for two tickets, I replied we needed three and she still repeated the price for two. Alrighty then, SS got another freebie. We are so afraid of what that kid will be coming home with when she is older.

It turned out we had the first class car and crew all to ourselves. Each ticket included a drink and a cookie as big as SS's head. SS repaid her Baba's kindness by refusing to share even one bite with him. P's decision was very convenient because the coach cars are open and it started to rain as we were about to depart. It was only 55 degrees and SS had a good fleece on (thanks Godmother C), but she is still getting over her cold, so we preferred nice and warm. Another plus is that the coach cars were decorated with a lot of skeletons and that surely would have driven SS over the edge. We had a nice ride, and were able to stand outside to watch the engine move from the front and back into our car for the return trip. The conductor gave s a nice history lesson on the ride back, but I missed most of it, because SS MUST talk to me and LOUDLY whenever anyone wants my attention. I did get that the car was built in 1921, and the interior was originally avocado green, and it was refurbished with virgin Mahogany. I do not know a thing about wood but the conductor seemed very proud of that fact. SS had a blast waving to people as we were arriving at the depot, probably thinking they were all there for her.

SS has been saying boo-yah! since we came home. What the heck? Where does she get that from? Funny thing is that P is watching the World Series. This kid is a riot.

SS will make a hat out of anything.

This is so cool, we have never seen a set up like this with the trailer in front of the bike. If there's a collision the kids (it's a double) get the brunt of the impact. Just what every parent wants.

P just had to wear his Halloweenie shirt.

I even dug out my pre SS skull sneakers for the occasion.

We loved the crew's sweatshirts, wish they had them for sale.

There's the engine Mama!

The littlest conductor.