Thoughts on our first Halloween in a house.

If you're still reading this blog, you're probably aware that we recently moved.  We now live in a neighborhood, and in our neighborhood we're able to have trick-or-treaters.  Erin was running around like a crazy person tonight in order to get back in time to greet the trick-or-treaters, and it was a lot of fun while it lasted.

With that in mind, here are a few of the exchanges from today.

This morning after chapel:

Little Girl:  Hola!

Me:  Hola!  Como estas?

Little Girl (loudly):  I'm going to be Supergirl for Halloween!

Tonight at the house:

Little Boy:  Trick or treat!

Me:  And what are you?  A flying dinosaur?

Little Boy (screaming...loudly):  A DRAGON!

Another little kid (dressed in all black and traveling alone):  Trick or treat.

Me:  What are you?

Little kid:  I'm going to take your soul.

Me:  My soul?  What are you going to do with my soul?

Little kid:  I am the reason you will rot in depression.

Me:  Alright.  Here's some candy.  Eat that instead of my soul.

So, all in all a pretty fun day.  I'm usually a grinch about these kind of things, but I had a great time seeing these little punks have so much fun begging strangers for candy.  I think next year we'll have to do something to make our place a bit more festive after we get through trick-or-treating with Amelia.  We're starting to take suggestions for costumes, and I'm thinking a leprechaun would be appropriate since we're now in Mobile.

In this blog still here?

If I haven't said it in an earlier post, I hope that I'm a better father than I am a blogger. With everything that happens it seems to be a real pain to take the time to jot down my thoughts and experiences each day, but when I look up and realize that Amelia is almost 8 months old, I realize that the times are slipping away! As I sit here this morning I'm watching her play like crazy in her Exer-Saucer and gum the teething toys that are attached to it.

Every now and then she looks up, sees Lily doing something, and gets a big grin on her face. Since she's not crawling at a pretty good clip she can get across the room quickly. She'll set a bead on Lily, and take off. As she gets closer to Lily, Lily gets a nervous look in her eyes and quickly moves. Erin and I laugh about this, but it's really kind of heartbreaking to see Amelia go after her so intentionally and excitedly then and have Lily just get up and walk away because she doesn't want to be bothered.

She's started to pull herself up on her toys, and it won't be long before she's making the first steps towards walking. It seems like not too long ago that she was on my chest while we watched Georgia beat up on Okie State before she was even two days old. As much as I want time to slow down so that I can keep my little girl I know it's just going to start going more quickly. I realize this as she has gone from not saying much to being a complete chatterbox in not too many weeks, she just changes and grows and learns so quickly. Babies really are incredible little creatures.

That's about it for now. I think it's time for some oatmeal for Amelia.