Weekend Rewind...& HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Happy Halloween to all my wonderful friends and family! I actually got a head start on the Halloween festivities Friday afternoon. Mom came and picked me up early from daycare so that I could get my first real taste of Trick-Or-Treating at the office where Mom and Dad work. I'm a FAST learner, you guys. It took me all of 5 minutes to learn that you don't REALLY need to be fully dressed in costume to get nice people to hand over candy. All you need is to look cute, and say "Trick-Or-Treat," or something along those lines. People will practically dump candy in your bag. I made out like a bandit. You see...I refused to wear the top part of my monkey costume, so all I had on were the pants. I had a Superman shirt on underneath...so folks were really quite confused as to what I was supposed to be dressed up as. OH, and my good buddy Daniel also joined us, but he was no fool...he wouldn't have anything to do with his costume either. At least I managed to keep my monkey pants ON, and of course Mom failed to get a picture during the 3 minutes I was fully dressed in monkey attire. Maybe if she is fast enough she will get a picture this evening!
Enjoying my sugar-high in Mom's office:

Daniel and I having fun in the halls:

After fun at the office, we ran a few errands and came home to relax. I decided to refuse bedtime, so I was up until 10:15 PM. Mom and Dad thought it was because of all the candy and over-stimulation from the office activities...but turns out, this was just the start of it.
On Saturday, we woke up and decided to go have breakfast at The Omelet Parlor. Dad had never been, and Mom had an excellent coupon...so why not? I ate mass amounts of scrambled eggs and was still eating by the time Mom and Dad were finished. Do you have any idea how rare this is? Usually they hurry through their meals so that they are done eating when I'm done eating (which doesn't take very long). It was a great breakfast had by all!

After breakfast, we decided to GO ON A MISSION. One trip to Lowes, and we were ready to begin this:

That's right! Mom INSISTED that progress on my baby sister's nursery be made. So, when I went down for my afternoon nap...Mom and Dad got busy painting (with a little help from Molly and Moses, of course).

It didn't take long to knock out one accent wall, and both Mom and Dad are very pleased with the results. It's a very pretty light aqua color that will match the main art center piece that was picked out a few months ago.

Dad was on a roll...so he decided to assembly Alex's crib as well! Oh, did I forget to tell you? We are now 99% sure that my baby sister will be named Alexandrea, and we will call her "Alex" and/or "Ali" for short. Mom would like to avoid calling her "Lexi" but we will see how long that lasts. Her middle name has also been decided, but the spelling isn't 100% yet. Her middle name will be Lee, and in case you didn't know...both Dad and Grandpa's middle name is Lee. We are still deciding if we want to spell it "Lee" or give it a more feminine spelling like "Leigh." Decisions...decisions. The crib turned out great and was a very easy assembly for my handy daddy. Alex's white dresser/changing table should be arriving today!

After a productive afternoon, we decided to go to dinner with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma decided I could use a little lipstick (okay..for the record it was lip gloss and I'm actually the one that requested it).

Pucker up!

Grandpa and I admiring my glossy lips:

Mom and I being silly at Bird Dog BBQ:

After dinner, Grandma and Grandpa came back over to the house to visit for awhile, and check out the nursery progress. I suckered Grandma into reading me about 8 books. She seemed to thoroughly enjoy it (and so did I). I DID go to bed at 9:00, with little resistance.

On Sunday morning, we decided to carve the two beautiful pumpkins that we picked up earlier in the month at Wishing Star Farms. We actually had 2 more pumpkins that were smashed by some kids on Friday night. We were sad to see them go in such a violent way. Darn teenagers!! Here I am posing with one of our pumpkins.

And for a fun flashback...here I am posing with Molly with our pumpkin from LAST year (2010):

Quite a difference a year makes, eh?

"I'm going to DOMINATE you, pumpkin!!"

Here I go...starting to dig out the seeds. Oh, but wait...turns out I'm not a big fan of the pumpkin goo...and did NOT enjoy getting very messy. So, Mom and Dad did a majority of the dirty work while I pranced around doing other toddler things.


Here is a video of me helping carve the pumpkin:

See? I was "all done" pretty early on. Dad had a good time carving his pumpkin:

I decided to strip off my PJ's (not because I was messy), and have a mid-morning snack. Watching Mom and Dad dig out all that goo sure did work up my appetite!

Playing with pumpkin shrapnel:

Ahh yes...the finished products (minus the dark and the lit candles inside). They didn't turn out too bad if I say so myself.

For the rest of the morning, we did our normal Sunday chores. This includes laundry. Can you guess who is hiding behind the dryer door?

AHAHAHH! Yep! You guessed correctly! It was me! I LOVE playing in the dryer. Yes, this does slow Mom's laundry process down quite a bit, but hey...It won't be long before I won't fit in the dryer anymore.

Mom decided to attempt her first batch of roosted pumpkin seeds, and boy did they turn out awesome! She did TWO batches...a cinnamon sugar batch, and a more traditional garlic salt/onion salt/Worcestershire batch. YUM!

Oh, and we waited until it was fairly dark to light our pumpkins inside. Yes...you heard right. Dad decided that he did not want to risk these pumpkins being smashed, so we kept them inside with us...and it was very enjoyable to have them right there in the kitchen with us all evening. Dad kept making the creepy Halloween voice...and I kept trying to imitate it. It was sooo funny.

Oh, and this is a picture of me up WAY past my bedtime (again):

I refused to go down at 8:00 PM when Dad tried lying me down in my crib. Mom and Dad had plans to watch one of their favorite HBO programs, but those plans were cancelled. Nobody really knows what is going on with me...but I have decided to switch things up a bit. Last night, at 9:30 PM...Mom decided that enough was enough and took me up to my crib, and made the tough decision to let me cry. The good news is...I cried for maybe 2 minutes before I quieted down and went to sleep. This absolutely breaks Mom's heart...she HATES to see me upset and there has only been maybe one other time where I have cried myself to sleep (back a few months ago when I was pulling this same stunt). Mom and Dad are really hoping that I return to my normal willing bedtime ASAP.

This morning also resulted in a very rough daycare drop-off. I did NOT want to see Mom or Dad go and was VERY upset. Mom believes part of this is still transitioning to the new room, and the other part has to do with my age. As she has sat and observed numerous drop-offs of my classmates over the past few weeks, she has noticed that almost ALL of them protest when it is time for Mom or Dad to go...even my friends closer to 3. Some are a little more dramatic than others (like myself), but this seems to be a tough age for separation anxiety. Looks like we possibly have a LONG ways to go.

I bet you are wondering what we are up to this evening...HALLOWEEN!!! Well, we are going to meet some friends of Gavin's Mom and Dad, eat some pizza with them, and then do some Trick-Or-Treating in the neighborhood. It should be a fun time, and the weather is GREAT for this time of year. Hope everyone had a very HAPPY HALLOWEEN!