Fall Fairs

On the evening of Halloween, we took the boys to a nearby church for a fall festival. Tyler was a pirate and Nathan was a monkey (which was Cooper's first Halloween costume 3 years ago). It was a very cool evening, so the monkey costume was perfect because it kept Nathan nice and warm.

Tyler had a blast playing all the little carnival games like go fish and a ring toss. The ring toss was hilarious to watch. The goal was to get one of the plastic rings (about the size of a frisbee) to hang on one of the spider's leg. Tyler, who loves to play frisbee in our backyard, immediately knew what to do with the plastic ring. The only problem was that he doesn't usually play with such a small target in mind. The poor volunteer at the ring toss was almost beheaded by a ring or two, and by the time Tyler finished, there were rings in just about every other booth. At one point, the volunteer said, "I think you almost caught a fish with that one." Tim, Nana and I were cracking up because it was such a funny sight to see rings flying everywhere.

There were also several inflatable rides, which Tyler always enjoys. One was an obstacle course with several steep climbs and big slides. Only one child was allowed on the course at a time, which was not so fun for the kid who was in line behind my son. Don't get me wrong. Tyler, my awesome little climber, did a great job scaling the walls, which were kind of like rock-climbing walls. It just took him a little bit longer to get through the course because he was younger and smaller than the other kids. The volunteer in charge of starting the kids on the course even went looking for him after a while. We watched him the whole way, so we knew he was okay. It was so great to see his huge smile when he finally made it to the top of the big wall and went down the big slide at the end. He was huffing and puffing, but he had so much fun.

We couldn't stay long because it was getting cold and Nathan needed to go to bed, so we came home and handed out candy for a little while. We didn't get too many trick-or-treaters this year, but Pirate Tyler enjoyed passing out candy to all the "kids", as he called them.

Our church had a fall fair the next evening, so once again, we got Tyler all dressed up in his pirate costume. He got to play more games and he even got to ride a pony, which he insisted was a "horsie". ("No, Mommy. Dat's not a pony, dat's a horsie.")

It's amazing how my definition of fun has changed since I had kids. Just the fact that Tyler loved getting dressed up and had a blast at these two fall fairs made it a fun weekend for me. And having the cutest little monkey around made it even sweeter.