Sunday Afternoon Watching Football

It was only this peaceful for a few brief moments, but it was nice while it lasted.  Plus the early afternoon light in the new den is awesome.

Halloween in Arkansas

As it turns out, there WAS a Gruffalo in the woods!  (I know the suspense was probably killing you.)  But you've never heard of a Gruffalo, you say?  Well, clearly you are not spending enough time in the woods of eastern Arkansas (or reading enough children's literature).  Here's a picture of the Gruffalo scaring Walt and Meredith:

If you were to notice that the Gruffalo bears a striking resemblance to one Chris Lareau, you would not be wrong. 

But let's back up.  We started our marathon weekend (two weeks ago, but who's counting?) in Wynne, Arkansas, with a trip to the local community college for a potluck spaghetti supper and race registration.  After the carbo load, we hit the streets of Wynne for some trick-or-treating.  One street even had a platoon of inflatable halloween decorations lining the road, so we of course used one of them as a festive backdrop for a photo op with our little racecar driver and ballerina.

Thanks to Aunt Harriet and Uncle Richard who sent the racecar driver pajamas last year.  Two bucks for a plastic helmet and Walt had his costume!

You've gotta wonder if SOMEBODY was trying to steal her candy, the way Mer is sitting on her loot!  But we couldn't linger long over the candy that night because we all had to be up bright and early to get to the 8 a.m. race start.  Walt had to be dragged out of bed, but he rallied quickly when he realized that we were going to his absolute favorite thing these days -- a race!  (He races everything, his cars, magnetic letters from the fridge, state puzzle pieces . . . "Hey Mommy, do you want Florida or Utah to win the race?")

And then 3:40 minutes later, Chris crossed the finish line . . .

. . . followed 15 minutes later by Josh.

A good showing by both, particularly considering that it was an unseasonably warm and sunny day.  While the marathoners lolled about on the grass reliving the race, Walt and Mer decided to have their own race.

The rest of the weekend was spent at Village Creek State Park taking "hikes" (which are pretty short when most of the hikers are either three years old or just ran 26.2 miles), making s'mores and eating Halloween candy.  Good times.

Second Half of October

Bad, bloggers!  Bad!  Bad!

I know, I know.  It's been a busy month, but that's still no excuse.  I think it's mostly just that by the time we get Walt in bed around 9:00 (and then back in bed at 9:07.  and 9:16.  and 9:22.) we're too exhausted to replay the day's happenings for your reading pleasure.  But as much as we write this blog in order to entertain you, our wonderful audience (and really, of course it's all for you!), we also use this as a repository for memories and images from Walt's childhood.  And at this rate, there's going to be a distinct break between 3-year old Walt and high school-graduate Walt.  So we'd better get on the stick.

And now a review of the second half of October. 

 

The red blur on the right side of this picture is Walt running maniacly through the hay-bale maze at the "pumpkin patch" we visited in north Mississippi.  I put that in quotes because, though we did choose a pumpkin from a field, we also noted many large, empty crates marked "PUMPKINS" behind a shed on the way out.  Cheaters. 

Here's the bigger boys trying to lead their families through the larger corn maze relying only on their knowledge of bat trivia.  Somehow, we made it out alive.

 

Back at the ranch a few days later, the menfolk of the Spickler household worked on creating our jack 'o lantern.  Walt was none too interested in the pumpkin's gooey insides, so Josh ended up doing most of that by himself. 

 

Of course, one of October's main highlights as far as Walt was concerned was his first foray into organized sports.  Soccer, to be precise.  For my purposes, soccer was an excellent motivational tool.  As in, "Do you want to go to soccer today?  Then you'd better (insert task Walt is totally uninterested in doing)!"  A lot of vegetables were eaten, toys picked up and fits averted in the name of going to soccer practice twice a week.  In other words, he absolutely loved it. Especially the medal and pizza party at the end. 

 

 

And no, Walt didn't play soccer barefoot (as he's seen in the first picture), but although the Spicklers came ready to play ball in the frigid (57-degree) weather, it was decided that the little athletes would instead spend the practice running wild in the gym, and cleats are apparently not good for gym floors. 

So I know that Halloween is technically part of October, but I think we'll save the Halloween pics for the next trick-or-treating/marathon post.  What was Walt's costume?  Did Josh finish the race?  Did we find a Gruffalo in the woods?!  Tune in next time to find out!  (I've heard that cliff-hanger endings are a good literary device and I need all the help I can get here.)