Halloween

This was a Halloween full of firsts for us all. This was the first year we have taken Kiernan trick-or-treating and the first year I have carved a pumpkin - EVER.

As we don't live in the city, people don't trick-or-treat out here. Usually daycare has this thing where they take the kids through the building and they visit the offices upstairs for trick or treating and then do some sort of parade type thing through the school rooms. I never gave it a second thought. This year though, I thought maybe we should try trick-or-treating and see how it goes. No Halloween is complete without a jack-o-lantern, so we planned to carve a pumpkin as well. A couple weeks ago we went to a local pumpkin patch and got a pumpkin while we were there as part of the entry fee.

In an effort to make Kiernan feel involved, I let him scoop the pumpkin out. The rest was pretty boring for him really. We got one of those pumpkin masters kits and I let him choose the design. He settled on a bat design with lots of small openings, but I hesitantly agreed. It took about 40 minutes, but this was the end result. Not bad if I do say so myself.

I called a friend who lives in town and asked if we could tag along for trick-or-treating. Kiernan was a tiger this year. I seem to sense a theme here. Year one - a lion; year two - a dragon; year three - a tiger (his choice not mine).

At first Kiernan didn't want to wear his costume at all. He had already refused to wear it at school even though all his classmates were dressed up. It was a fight to get it on him that night too. He complained repeatedly until we began the door-to-door knocking. At first he was unsure and shy about it, but as the night wore on he got the hang of it, running up to the doors and ringing doorbells.

I'm sure the three of us were quite the site to behold. As I was barely able to convince Kiernan to wear his costume, I certainly wasn't going to push him to wear the head piece and gloves. So Beosig donned the tiger head and I wore the gloves on my hands.

I wish I had my camera with me because some of those decorations were excellent at the houses we visited. There were a number of them that got these eyes that lit up and blinked and made sounds and tied them into their bushes. It made it look like you were being watched as you walked up the driveway. Neat. Then there was one house that had a giant black spider that was all lit up with green and pink lights and the legs very slowly moved. That freaked Kiernan out a bit and it took some coaxing to get him to go past it.

All in all, a pretty good day, with the added bonus of a ton of candy-booty for Kiernan. 

Scrapbooking Anyone?

I think I keep forgetting that I am the mother to a 2 1/2 year old child. I seem to be coming up with more ways to waste the time of each day away. It is as if I have nothing better to do. My recent interest, scrapbooking, started when I returned from our trip to California. I thought it would be nice to have a way to present it so that Kiernan might be able to look at pictures and remember it. A side benefit being that I would be able to share the pictures etc. with friend as well. Great idea!

So skip forward about 3 weeks. I have yet to even so much as find a book on the subject and crack it open to figure out what I am doing. I have purchased a number of items to help me in the task, scrapbook, themed pages, stickers, glue dots, various scissors with fancy cut lines to them for borders etc. I have printed literally hundreds of photos in anticipation. I am itching, chomping at the bit to get started! And yet, I have no guidance. Merely my own creativity and ideas to lead me. I have browsed a couple of websites that offer tips and tricks. That is the extent of my preparations.

When on earth will I find the time to go check a book out from the library on scrapbooking so I will know what I am doing before I start? Let's not even talk about when will I find time to read said book or actually DO the scrapbooking. Yes, I find time for reading on a semi-regular basis, but I'm already committed to certain other books I have started which need to be returned to their owners when completed.

I have polled a number of friends on FB for information, but received no answers. My requests fall on deaf ears it would seem. Either that or said friends are waiting for me to get antsy and start only to make a total idiot of myself so they can point and laugh. That's probably the more likely answer, and I can't blame them...too much.

If you are reading this post and are familiar with scrapbooking, I would like to request that you share any of your tips or secrets with me! Who knows, perhaps I'll get lucky and find someone out there who can help me out yet.

First Tooth, First Solids

This marks a big week for Kiernan. Beosig's mom and step dad flew into town today for a short weekend visit. While waiting for them at the airport we discovered that Kiernan had a tooth finally break through the surface. We've been expecting that for some time with all his drooling and biting on almost anything he can get into his mouth.

Grandma was so anxious to see Kiernan again she hugged and greeted Beosig then went right for him and forgot to even give me a hug. I didn't say anything about it. It was not intentional and I'm not upset over it, I found it rather amusing, truth be told. Grandpa had not yet met him and while he was eager to get his hands on Kiernan he did take the time to greet me and Beosig first.

Grandma and grandpa are clearly smitten with Kiernan - constantly cooing at him, smiling, and otherwise engaging him. Happy baby that he is, he smiles and giggle at all of this new attention.

Since Kiernan will be 6 months old in just a little over a week I had planned on introducing him to solid food for the first time while grandma and grandpa were in town. We started with rice cereal. He seemed to enjoy it and didn't end up spitting too much out I don't think.

So far we have taken grandma and grandpa to Manitou Springs to walk around and drove through Garden of the Gods. We have plans to ride the COG railway up to the top of Pikes Peak tomorrow and hit the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo while they are here as well. Lots of driving but it all should be pretty fun.