Starting a New Tradition...

Now, I've been to Gardner Village several times...but never at Halloween time. Wow, they really go all out! The Halloween decorations were really great. They also have lots and lots of witches all around the village, and you can walk around with a checklist so that you're sure to see them all (and then turn it in at the bakery for a cookie!). Noah was really excited about running around to see everything when we got there, and so this is the face that I got when I plopped him up on crate of pumpkins for a quick picture...the super-pout:

Luckily Lincoln is still at the stage where he's content to stay in the stroller...

Linc and me.

Trying to get a picture of grandma and the boys, but Noah is just much too fast.

There are lots of really cute shops at Gardner Village, and many of them had witch hats. Noah absolutely loved them and wanted to try them all on, and he was quite disappointed that he couldn't have one. Here's a quick shot of him wearing one of the hats inside a shop.

Noah was a bit reserved about all of the displayed witches at first, but I wouldn't say that he was necessarily scared of them. However, we saw a couple of boys wearing werewolf costumes that he was scared of. In fact, he ran over and grabbed a hold of my mom's hand. So, while you might have thought this was just a sweet moment of Noah holding grandma's hand (which does happen sometimes too) - nope. I just jumped on the chance to snap a quick photo while Noah was holding still. (and then we asked the boys to take off their masks and show Noah that it was pretend, and just a costume - which they did)

This was about the time that Noah started warming up to the idea that all these witches were pretty harmless. He slowly inched his way up to this one, keeping his eyes on her, and gave her a quick touch on the knee...

And, of course we wouldn't miss a chance to "ride with a witch". While we waited in line, I asked Noah to hold on to grandma's pocket so that he'd stay near to us. Too cute.

Of course he didn't go for the pocket thing the entire time we waited, but he didn't run off too far. There was a little wall that he enjoyed balancing on and walking around - over & over :)

Once it was finally our turn for the ride, we hopped up onto the tractor and sat down on the bale of hay right up by the witch. When the ride got started, the witch asked Noah if he would like to hold her toad during the ride. He got a bit shy and didn't answer, but he held out his hands to take it.

The witch was our tour guide as we took our ride around the village, pointing things out and making cute, clever little comments or singing songs. Once our ride was over I snapped a quick photo of her with Noah.

Lastly, before heading home, we stopped by the bakery for a quick bite to eat...and a cookie of course! Noah chose a snickerdoodle...

...and I even let Lincoln have a sugar cookie (frosted like a pumpkin). His first cookie!

Unlike Noah, who wasn't crazy about sweets at first, Lincoln loved the cookie and it seemed like he just couldn't eat it up fast enough.

Mmmmm. (I'm guessing that we won't have to coax him to eat birthday cake in a couple of weeks, like we did Noah...what do you think?)
Thanks, Mom - we had such a great time! And, I plan on making a visit to Gardner Village during Halloween time a new tradition in our family!