October was all about Halloween. Carter knew he wanted to be a pirate from the minute we said "dress up", Carter wanted to be a pirate. We looked at several costume sites online, before he settled on this one - it is most like Captain Hook, you know?! Grayson waffled. First he wanted to be a UPS driver, then a dragon, then nothing. For a long time, he was convinced he didn't want to dress up. Then Leanne told him about trick-or-treating and it was instantly interested. He opted for a pirate too - but more of the Smee kind of pirate (can you tell they love Peter Pan?) So, here they are ready to go out. Carter had a 104.1 fever Halloween morning - but it had broken by noon and he acted like he felt fine. We only hit up 6-7 houses before they were tired of it and wanted to go home and pass out candy to the other trick-or-treaters.

The end of November brought the start of the holiday season. We kicked off the season with a trip to Annapolis to see a tree lighting, see Santa (one of many times we saw him), see the lights on the boats at the dock, and eat holiday cookies.

In December we took the boys to the Community Center to have breakfast with Santa. Can you tell just how enamoured Carter was? He truly loved Christmas this year. He was enthralled by the magic of it all. Suzanne and Rhyder gave us the book (and elf) Elf on the Shelf. the elf comes and sits on a shelf in the house and then flies to the North Pole each night after the kids are asleep to give Santa a report on their behavior. In the morning when they wake up, the elf is in a new place - ready to see new action. This was a HUGE hit - and Carter has been insisting that he is an elf (and to be called "Elf Carter") since. Grayson was also excited, but much more wary of the hoopla. For the longest time when we'd ask what he wanted for Christmas, he'd say "NOTHING." We were baffled. Finally, we figured out that he didn't want to sit on Santa's lap and have to tell him - but if he could write a letter, than he would want a helicopter! Needless to say, he got past the issues of sitting on Santa's lap and even told him what he wanted!

After breakfast with Santa, our friend Robin (who'd flown in from FL) drove to Philly with me to hang out while Leanne stayed home to work on her final paper of the semester. We took the kids to the Please Touch Museum (great museum) and the boys were able to see Mia (first time they'd seen her since she left in July) and we had a great time. The weather was pretty darn cold (and much to Robin's delight it snowed!) but we had fun! Here is Carter at the museum!