In the months preceding Halloween, there were numerous costume ideas that were tossed around by the kids. Too many to count, in fact.  As we entered October, the leading candidates were Star Wars characters - Chewbacca (preferred by Sarah) and Boba Fett (by Caleb).  I wasn't too worried about making a Boba Fett costume.  Caleb was Jenga Fett last year (Boba's son), so I figure the Boba costume would just be a variation of last year's get-up.  It was the Chewbacca costume that had me a bit concerned.  When I mentioned it could be a bit challenging to make the Chewbacca costume, Sarah immediate response was "What do you mean, Dad?  It's easy.  You just get some brown hair and put it all over the costume."  I think she might have concluded her instructions with a "duh" for emphasis, but I'm not positive.

Anyway, as we turned to the final weeks of October, I surprisingly hadn't received many questions from the kids about the status of their costumes.  And given that I still didn't know how I was going to put together a Chewbacca costume, I definitely wasn't going to start the conversation.

Remarkably, somewhere during the month of October, both Caleb and Sarah had a change of heart.  Both wanted to be ninjas.  Caleb wanted to be your standard run-of-the-mill ninja dressed in black and Sarah wanted to be Kai from the Lego Ninjago series (Kai is the ninja dressed in red).  Since neither costume required brown hair, I was fully supportive of their new costume ideas.

Kate handled the costume construction (otherwise known as "let's find all the red and black clothes in our house and put them on the kids").  I handle the sword creation (otherwise known as "cardboard + duct tape = sword").  And when all was said and done, we had two ninjas and, more importantly, two very happy kids.

Below you'll find a few pre-trick or treating photos, a photo of the ninjas protecting their loot, and a photo of them celebrating a job well done!

My good friend, Gary Bowling, got married this past weekend in Deep Creek, MD.  The weekend was an absolute blast.  The rehearsal dinner had a sports attire theme, so everyone was dressed in the jerseys, shirts, and sweatshirts of their favorite sports team.  The local teams, especially the Orioles and Redskins, were quite well represented (I think there were six people wearing Chris Cooley jerseys, so I'm guessing many in attendance were happy to see the Redskins add him back to the roster).  Kate was one of the Chris Cooley supporters.  Caleb donned his JMU football jersey.  Sarah gave props to Granddadder and the Cleveland Indians.  And, of course, I represented my beloved Cincinnati Reds.

The morning of the wedding opened with Caleb playing some two-hand touch football and Sarah playing some tennis with a bunch of other kids that were in town for the wedding.  After some lunch at our lakeside lodge, we cleaned ourselves up a bit and heading down to the wedding.  Beautiful weather greeted us at the outdoor wedding and the reception was filled with dancing, moonshine (yep, that's right, moonshine), and a dessert bar full of candy.  A good time was had by all!  Congrats to Gary and Emily!

Caleb played kid-pitch fall baseball this season.  And since Caleb played fall ball, Sarah went to a lot of Caleb's practices and games throughout the season.  She always brought her glove and wore her cleats to the games/practices and, thanks to some really great coaches, was often given the chance to warm up with the team.  She loved being out there with her brother and all the other 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders.

On some of the weeknight games throughout the season, the team sometimes struggled to field a full lineup.  As we got closer to the end of the season, after Sarah had become a mainstay of the pregame warmup, the coaches often joked that if they didn't get enough players for a game, they'd just put Sarah out there.

On October 22nd, in their next-to-last game of the season, the Alexandria-Potomac Little League Yankees only had eight players.  And since Sarah had, yet again, brought her glove and wore her cleats (and wore one of Caleb's uniforms from a past season, to boot), the coaches asked her if she'd like to play right field.  I don't think I need to tell you how she answered the question. 

Sarah played right field for the first two innings and moved to left field for the final two innings.  When she went out to play right field, one of the coaches told Sarah that the right fielder is responsible for backing up any throws toward the first baseman.  Needless to say, for the first two innings, Sarah backed up any throws made to the first baseman.     

Sarah was placed at the bottom of the lineup and in her two at-bats, she drew walks (remember, this is kid-pitch and Sarah just recently completed her first t-ball season).  In fall ball, to give the kids a chance to work on their fielding, if a kid is walked, the coach comes in and gives them "soft toss" pitches to try to get the ball in play.  In both of her at-bats, Sarah connected on her "soft toss" pitch, but got thrown out at first.  The first base coach said that you wouldn't believe how big Sarah's smile was as she was running down the baseline after putting the ball in play.

And just when we thought it couldn't get any better for Sarah, it did.  Sarah got the game ball for being the player who was the most focused defensive player on the team.  And, since she had played a complete game as a player for the Alexandria-Potomac Little League Yankees, they gave her a hat to let her know she was part of the team.

As a parent, you develop mental pictures of your kids during different points of their childhood.  Honestly, I think the picture of Sarah playing left field in her "baseball ready" stance is something that will always be etched into my memory.