BOO

Happy Halloween!

It's been a busy Halloween day here - we hosted play group with our friends, most of them in costume (not Dex, he said no thank you).  Dexter went to his first swimming lesson since spring this afternoon, which went ok - the teacher said he only whined for half the time.  Our goal by the end of eight weeks is for me to be able to stay there and watch (currently I just have to leave or all hell breaks loose), and have the little man not lose his shit.  We'll see how it goes.

And then we practiced some trick or treating, and Dex rang our door bell a few times to practice, and then we sent him on his merry way to Mr. George and Miss Penny's house.  And he and Daddy came back about three seconds later to ring our door bell again and get some more treats, aaaaaaand... then he was done.  Do you want to go out to get more treats?  No thank you.  Want to stay here with Mama.

So, he went out to one house.  And he saw Murphy the dog, which might have been the highlight of his night.  Ah, well.  At least I only paid five bucks for his costume.

Happy Halloween!

Dragon.  Not a turtle.  Dragon.  Maybe could have passed for a dinosaur, but I think the wings make it a dragon.  We tried to pass it off as Puff the Magic Dragon, to make it cooler.  No dice.

Practicing.  He had it down.  Ring door bell.  Someone opens the door.  Say Trick or Treat.  Get a treat.  Eat the treat.  If he remembered, say thank you.  He forgot all of those steps at Mr. George's house - distracted by Murphy the dog.

The boys head off across the yard to Mr. George's house.

Yeah, that whole walking thing didn't last very long.

Dexter's punkin

Both our pumpkins.  John was a slacker and never carved his pumpkin.  My VT got some compliments.

Getting the full wing effect

When asked to show off his wings, Dex did this - his Chicken Wing dance

I'm not sure what kind of random Batman dance this was, but it had John crying with laughter

Happy Halloween, cute boy.  We love you!

Not New York

So this happened today:

And, yeah.  It's OCTOBER 29.  What the hell?  I moved AWAY from New York so this shit didn't happen.  Snow before Halloween is fairly well unacceptable.

We made the best of it this afternoon.  We made THESE PUMPKIN COOKIES and they were pretty well fantastic.  If we don't eat them all, we'll feed them to our play group here on Monday morning.  I made THIS PUMPKIN CURRY with some CAULIFLOWER RICE (minus the celery, because celery is disgusting) for dinner.  John was skeptical, and honestly quite sad when he saw me dump the shrimp in the yukky looking orange stuff, but he changed his mind after he ate it and declared it "pretty yummy."  Even Dexter ate about six shrimp.  That's my boy.

And we went out to play in the snow for a while.  It was BRRRRRR.

The boys enjoyed running around in the snow

Snowy cuteness.  Who refused to put on any mittens.

The pumpkins were not impressed

Please to be enjoying a video of cute small child running with funny looking small dog

And another video of John and Dexter making "triangles" in the snow.  It's way easier to do in the snow, as you can SEE your triangle

After playing in the snow, one requires a good dose of hot chocolate.  A little bit even got in his belly.

It was a good afternoon to watch football on TV and listen to music on the CD player.  Dex has been obsessed with music this week.  His little brain can't process two things at once, so we have been spending a lot of time just lying on the couch, listening to music.

It's not a bad gig, really, this lying on the couch thing.

Happy snow day!  And, yes.  It's still snowing.

Feeling Fall-ish

I know, I KNOW, grandmas.  I haven't posted pictures of your cute boy in a while.  Dude - I've been busy.  I'm still trying to catch up after Fair Hill.  Hell, I am still trying to FINISH Fair Hill.  I just posted THIS tonight, after finally editing and uploading all the pictures I took that weekend.

And then right after Fair Hill ended I went BAM full throttle in to editing, sorting, and culling some 700 photos of my cute sister, in order to make a video to show at her surprise 40th birthday party.  And then packed all our crap for that and loaded the fam in to the car last weekend for a quick trip to New York.  Which was fun, and would have been even more fun if Dexter hadn't had a cold, thus inhibiting his ability to sleep, thus making for a tired, grumpy-ass kid.  He was, fortunately, cute for the 45 minutes he was at Aunt Jeanne's party.  As we were waiting in darkness for Jeanne to come down the stairs so we could surprise her, John was holding back giggles as Dexter was chirping away, "You can turn the lights on!  Aunt Jeanne can come down!  Look at that cool fire place!  You can TURN THE LIGHTS ON!"  Surprise is not exactly his forte.

So this week I am catching up.  And also napping.  And doing laundry.  And making an actual dinner menu for the first time in about a month.  Our CSA is over for the year and I still have a few potatoes, some onions, and about seven trillion peppers of various degrees of hotness to use up.  Holy crap.  There's no way in hell we'd ever do more than a half share.  The veggies I really like and want more of I can just go get from the local Amish guy.  The peppers and the radishes and the turnips I could kind of do without.  Oh, and the fennel.  REALLY could have done without the fennel.

So, here you go grandmas.  Here's what we've been doing for the past couple days.  We went to Longwood on Monday, too.  HERE'S THE LINK to all those photos - there's some cute ones!

Me and the old lady

The morning after at Aunt Jeanne's house.  Dexter was enamored with Jeanne's new kitten, Daryl.

Daryl is one ridiculously cute and patient kitten.  I hope he stays that way once he grows in to a stupid cat.

I don't care how cute you are, kid.  We're NOT getting a goddamn cat.

Yesterday John came home early and we went to go get pumpkins.  We don't have any pictures at the pumpkin patch cuz... yeah.  When you're slackers like us and wait til the week before Halloween to get your pumpkins, on a year when pumpkins didn't fare well... the pumpkin patch is no longer open so you just get to pick your three pumpkins off the ones on display on the side of the driveway.  Not quite as exciting.

Whatcha doing, Daddy?

Dexter is an excellent gut scooper

Cute Daddy

Boys busy scooping guts.  We had a whole lotta guts.  We also roasted pumpkin seeds last night, in butter and salt.  Pretty damn tasty.  I always wish, though, that pumpkin seeds didn't make me feel like I was chewing on a tree.

Dex is checking out Daddy's carving skills so he can do it by himself next year.

End product.  We stole the cookie cutter idea from Aunt Jeanne.  Although we were obviously way more prepared to make a Christmas Jack-o-lantern than a Halloween one...

Love this one

And here's mine.  Goooooooo, Hokies, go!  PS - our friend Tony went to a wedding in the Burg a few weeks ago.  He went to a little school.  He was...  a little confused and overwhelmed by the amount of Hokie spirit down there.

Here's Dex working on his pumpkin (video)

Here he is having fun with the candle (video)

Dex gives you a little pumpkin run-down (video)

We did a little trial run of Dexter's costume.  He was, obviously, thrilled.

See?  Psyched.  (video)

Here's the head that Dexter will very likely never ever wear

Today we went to a Halloween parade at the local nursing home.  Here's a room full of totally thrilled children.

Hey, Dex, did you have fun at the Halloween parade?  YES.  What was your favorite part?  THE FISH.

During a break in the rain today we got out for a bike ride.  I used to complain that Dexter was SO SLOW. Now I am speed walking to keep up.

Little man got in trouble, though, and had to get off his bike and walk home.

And here's some video of the biker boy.  He's looking way less like a drunken Aunt Jeanne these days...

Fired UP

The little man has a cold.  Which means his nose is snotting fountains.  Which means he can't breathe through his nose.  Which means he can't suck his fingers at bed time.  Which means he didn't take a nap today.  Which means he is ALL KINDS of fired up tonight.

I was cracking up listening to him over the monitor while he was playing in his room, cheerfully singing the ABC song.  Also cracking up listening to him singing who knows what while John was changing his diaper.  And then I went in to give him a good-night kiss and he was spouting off verses of "No more monkeys jumping on the bed."  Which I think he heard for the first time...  this morning.

So, hope you feel better, kiddo.  But this crazy Dexter is kind of entertaining, really.

I finished up Fair Hill clean-up Monday afternoon, so life is slowly settling back in to a normal routine.  I actually vacuumed the floor and cleaned the kitchen last night, which hadn't happened for a few weeks.  I went to FIT class on Tuesday morning, which means that today I can't sit down, stand up, or walk, really.  Yes.  Life is pretty much back to normal.

I Love You sign

Dexter, a little note to you:  Today we had a very shy friend over for a play date, and you were so very good at talking to him and asking him questions and including him in your play.  We helped that friend be a little bit less shy today, and I am really proud of you for doing that.  You rock.

You also put together your ABC train puzzle all by yourself, and you only had to ask me maybe three times which letter came next.  Kick ass, kiddo.  Kick ass.