Christmas comes early in Illinois

We made our annual pilgrimage to the Festival of Trees last weekend. It feels odd before Thanksgiving, but the festival ends this weekend and we're always out of town for the holiday. And so we enjoy a dose of tacky Christmas overload -- in the middle of November.

I usually try to have Kel dress nicely since this is where we get his annual photo with Santa, but this year we were going straight to basketball practise, so he was in gym pants and t-shirt. Oh well.





We love the giant gingerbread men. They are all frosted differently and you choose which one you want. Kel looks for maximum frosting. The frosting goes first, followed by the cookie.




Kel's reaction when I said, "Darn, you can't really tell that its a Beatles tree" as he posed by a tree with a Beatles theme. It would have been all matchy matchy cute, but you'll just have to trust me. It was a Beatles tree.




Kel and Santa. Not too old yet. He insisted on waiting to see the Big Guy, even though the line was ridiculous.





Kel took this photo of me and Nic next to some weird stuffed animal tree.

Our Little Pilgrim

I had the privilege of attending today's Thanksgiving play at Kellan's school, put on by his first grade class. What an adorable bunch of Pilgrims and Indians. How very un-PC, but I'm overlooking it. They worked so hard and were wonderful. The show was fun for everybody. And sometimes its nice to time travel on a Friday afternoon. Ah, the 1950s, when life was simple and it was ok to sing a song containing the refrain, "Dance, Indian man, dance!".




The whole adorable lot of them. The play took place in the music room.




Kellan and his good buddy, Dylan. A modest Indian who kept holding his vest closed.





Kel with another buddy, Hayden. He's apparently been toning his stomach muscles for the part and wasn't shy about the open vested look. Check out those abs!





Kellan and his wonderful first grade teacher, Mrs. Lyddon. She takes good care of our boy.

Halloween!

I figured that I'd better get this Halloween post up before Thanksgiving! Its been a busy week. Kellan's basketball season has started, he's got piano and choir, the nightly homework seems to be growing exponentially, and they've got a Thanksgiving play coming up later this month which adds memorizing lines and songs to the evening workload. I'm exhausted!

We had a wonderful Halloween. Kellan dressed as Spongebob and tried to pull off looking cool at the same time. Didn't work out so well.




We attended the super fun Boo at the Zoo in Decatur again this year. Can you tell that Kellan wanted nothing to do with standing next to this mummy? Which he calls a "mommy".






I'm pretty sure that this was supposed to be Dora pumpkin-head-scarecrow-thingy. Note the purple sweater.

Kel said that this was Casper, though I doubt that Casper would appreciate a pink bow.

Kel pretending to be "a zombie" as he called it (ie Frankenstein).

Can you have an event in central Illinois that doesn't somehow incorporate corn? I think not!

Riding on the carousel. They play spooky Halloween music during Boo at the Zoo.

Can you spot the waving Spongeboy?

While we were in Decatur, we spent the afternoon at the always fun Children's Museum. This is Kel with his buddy, Mario the dalmation.

Knocking down the block tower!

Spongeboy found himself on a box of Mac & Cheese in the grocery store area!

Electrifying his face.







Look at those legs go!






In the funhouse mirror.

Hard at work in the "post office".

Also throwing in some photos of our pumpkins. Not bad, eh? We are pumpkin artists here at the Evans house!