Aaaarrrrrrgh!

For Jack's first Halloween, I decided that Jack (my little stinkerpants) would be a skunk.

For Jack's second Halloween, Dave decided that Jack (with those chubby little cheeks) would be a chipmunk (Alvin, to be exact).

For Jack's third Halloween, Jack decided that he wanted to be "A Pirate! Aaaaarrrrrrgh!!!"

Thanks to my mom for the costume! The pants were recycled from when my sister was a pirate when she was 8 or 9... it was a skirt and my mom turned it into a pair of pants. She also made the vest and the eye-patch out of some black felt. I had intended on using a regular red bandanna for the headscarf, but 2 days before Halloween I found this pirate headscarf in Jack's room from when he attended a pirate-themed birthday party 2 summers ago and decided that it was just perfect! I had my mom affix the eye-patch to the scarf so that Jack could just flip it up when he didn't want to wear it over his eye, and there you have it! The cutest little pirate I've ever seen!!!

And, as we let Jack wear the costume all day, he was apparently the cutest little pirate that everyone at Target had ever seen, too! As we were shopping that day we got stopped so many times by people wanting to tell us how adorable Jack was. One woman in particular was especially thrilled by him. She stopped to tell us how adorable he was and was completely gushing over him. Then Jack decided to pull down his eye-patch and tell her "The pirate says 'Aaarrrgh!'" and she about lost it. She whipped out her cell-phone and said "Do you mind? Can I please take a picture? He just makes me so happy and I want to show my friend the adorable child that just made my day!"

He made my day, too!

After shopping at Target, we got to see Luke in his costume! The poor kid was so hot in that outfit, so he only wore it for not even 5 minutes, but he was such a good boy that he let us put it back on him to take a picture, even though it must have been sweltering hot in there!

After that, it was time to get ready for Trick-or-Treating, and Jack waited patiently while grandma put on her costume.

She didn't tell him what her costume was going to be, but we all knew that he'd love it! We couldn't have imagined a better reaction from him when he saw that grandma had dressed up like his absolute favorite treat: an M&M! When he saw her, his face lit up and he said "Oh! It's like an M&M!" and then he walked up to her, leaned over, and pretended to take a bite out of her- complete with a 'chomping' sound effect!!! It was absolutely hilarious!!!

Then, we were finally ready for Jack's first Trick-or-Treating experience!

First, we gave him instructions...


And then we let him get to work!

He did such a great job! I mean, once he realized, after a few houses, that he wasn't supposed to walk right in when they answered the door! He got really good at saying Trick-Or-Treat and holding his bag out for them to put candy in. And my polite, well-mannered boy did a great job at remembering to say "Thank you!" before leaving each house. I was very proud of him!

We had only planned on Trick-or-Treating for a little while, because we wanted to go to my mom's church for their Reformation Carnival, so we only went to the houses that had been decorated for Halloween. A lot of my neighbors get really into their Halloween decorations, and at the last house we went to we just couldn't resist taking a picture. They had dressed up their house with pirates!

After that we finished up Trick-or-Treating and headed back home to unload Jack's loot and get ready for the carnival. Jack was practically skipping, he was having so much fun!

Jack had a great time at the Reformation Carnival, too. He loved playing all the games, and he even got another chance to Trick-or-Treat, as this year they had set up Trunk-or-Treating in the parking lot!

Jack had such a great time, and he was talking for weeks about Halloween and how he got to be a pirate and go Trick-or-Treating! Dave and I aren't really big fans of Halloween, but we definitely enjoy it so much more with Jack Jack! It is so fun for us to watch him explore life!