But first, some site stuff. My friend Ian and I are trekking out to Universal Studios after work for Halloween Horror Nights. I will be posting live on Instagram (sethtearz) and Twitter @sethtearz tonight (NO FACEBOOK!), so follow me to join along in the fright fest.

As the days of the calendar rapidly fall off of October, I figured a fun way to count down to Halloween would be to post Jax’s costumes, in order, from his first Halloween. So here we go.

First Halloween

Two weeks before Jax’s first Halloween I was shipped off to Hopkinton, MA for five weeks of training at my new job at a mega insurance company. He just turned 9 months. It crushed me to miss his first Halloween. My wife sent me photos and updated me about the severe fires just down the freeway from our house. It was bad enough that she took photos of our possessions in our house for insurance purposes, should our house burn down. Fortunately it didn’t get any closer than that.

But it was an unusually hot Halloween. While I was partying in downtown Salem, MA in 45 degree weather, my wife and family were sweating it off on a 85 degree night with smells of a bonfire.

We picked out Jax’s furry first costume at Old Navy, and never imagined it’d be as hot as it was. Our criteria was cute and warm. So he was a skunk.

Jax skunking it up at our coffee table.

“Candy? Really? F you, Mom. I want PUFFS!”

“Look at all this colorful stuff my parents won’t let me eat until I’m 3. Jerks.”

Next week I’ll post pics of his second Halloween.