It was bothering me to not have a post for every day of the month.. so I'll just overload you with baby pictures!
I'm sure I must have
complained posted about how much I don't like halloween at some point on this blog. It's not that I think it's inherently evil, I just think it's silly and over commercialized and has bad potential. In college it was just an excuse for people to dress inappropriately and be irresponsible, which has left a bitter taste in my mouth.
So we knew the day would come when we'd have kids and we would have to decide what we were going to do about halloween. Blake thinks it's harmless fun (and I agree, it can be) and, really, I think it's dumb. Okay, I said it. Dumb. I hate that candy and sugar are so addictive and are
EVERYWHERE. And I hate that halloween just encourages candy consumption. As if the battle against sugar in our lives isn't hard enough.
And there are the icky parts of halloween like poisoned candy, predators, those people that actually believe in witches etc, the history of halloween and really, people decorate with spiders, ghosts, tombstones, death etc. ... good clean fun? Not in my book. When I think of Philippians 4:8 halloween just doesn't seem to fit into any of those categories (lovely, pure, commendable etc). I know, I know. Bah humbug.
Okay. With that off my chest, I know that halloween can also just be as simple as cute kids in cute costumes playing games. We dressed up for halloween as kids and I don't remember it being any big deal. We lived in the middle of nowhere, so trick or treating involved a 20 minute car ride between grandparents houses and family friends. It really was harmless and my mom has fond memories of us and our costumes.
We still aren't exactly sure what our halloweens will look like for us and our kids. Obviously this year Emerson truly has no idea, and probably for several years to come. We have Bible study on Thursday nights, so that's what we did (but it was game night since our church has a big harvest party and lots of families were there). I'm okay with harvest parties and costumes and even limited trick-or-treating... but I'd also be more than okay without them. We'll find a compromise when we need to and we'll try to honor our families and our Father in whatever we end up doing.
If we end up doing the costume/halloween thing.. it would kill me not to have a picture for every year.. so we took one just in case. For the record, we actually put her in her costume and took pictures last weekend. Let the Fall baby pictures begin. And yes, I did prop my four month old up with pumpkins :)
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| (We tried a few with the Bumbo too, but she leans in it anyway.) |
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| Our Pumpkin sittin' pretty with the pumpkins. There was a lot of this... not looking at the camera |
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| What are those things? |
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| I got one...oooh look, there are lots more! |
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| And even more over there! (or maybe she's looking at her shoe) |
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| Oh hi mom, I forgot you were there. |
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| You want me to do what? Smile? I'll think about it. |
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| Pumpkin and her first pumpkin |
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| A little mid-photoshoot poop, keepin things real. |
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| Aaand, dad came home... look who's all smiles now! |
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And two seconds after we smile.. we like to throw ourselves backward.
You get one smile picture and then several falling backwards pictures. |
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| I save my best smiles for dad. |
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| A quick family photo.. Now she's all about the pumpkin. |
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| This was also my costume when I was a baby :) |
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| She really nailed the pumpkin look. |
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| And a little blooper for you. |
I actually think all the candy holidays are sort of dumb. I confess that a big part of my motivation for that feeling is that it is just ONE more situation in which I have to be organized and prepared (not my strongest qualities) to deal with the allergy thing. But, we full-on participate in all of these because the kids ADORE it. And because I am a sucker for kids in cute costumes. (I do not so much like the gross ones... cute little kids as zombies? Ugh.) So my point being... I see your point!! Whatever you guys decide will be fun, and thankfully there's usually lots of harvest party options.
ReplyDeleteAnd now, on to the pictures, which are epically cute. You absolutely must pose your baby with pumpkins, it is a law of fall, especially since you called her pumpkin. :) I think my favorites are the ones with the leaf commentary, although it's hard to decide. Excellent fall photo shoot :)
My kids always save the best smiles for Daddy, too, at that age. :)
-Lisa
Thanks :). I agree! I'd almost go as far as saying that all the greeting card holidays are dumb. I mean, Valentines, St. Patrick's day, even Mother's and Father's Days. They're just made up so we feel obligated to spend money. I also feel like it just distracts us from holidays with real meaning. Like Easter has real meaning but by then it's the third candy holiday in three months and its so easy to get caught up in the shallow aspects of it. *sigh* okay vent over!
DeleteI thought of adding worries of peanut exposure to the list of drawbacks because I thought if you. That has to be so hard!
Cute pictures. Slightly jealous that you have flowers and can be outside without coats. It's been cold here this week. I agree with you on the conundrum of Halloween. But based on my kids, you could potentially make it five more years without them realizing they are missing out. :)
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