Halloween at last! Simon has been talking about being a baseball player forever. Then when it was crunch time and he had to choose a costume he threw us a curve ball and decided to be a fire chief. He seemed really happy with the decision, so we went with it. In not too long baseball man will be a reality anyway!
He went to school dressed up on Friday. They had planned a Halloween parade around the block for the PreK-5th grade, but the weather did not cooperate. Because it was snowing/sleeting in the morning they had the parade down the school hall. Not nearly as long or exciting as walking outside, but definitely much warmer and easier on everyone (especially people watching!) Jessie, Lillian, Alan and I all went to watch the parade and then went home to get ourselves together to start trick or treating! The stores on Lincoln did trick or treating from 3-6 and we started right at 3. There was crazy wind and a wintery mix of sleet, rain, and snow, but it was the first Halloween that Simon was into it so Alan and I were game (poor Lillian didn't have a choice, and Jessie manned the door back in the warm house). We finished with Lincoln around 4 and were ready to start trick or treating on our block be there wasn't really anyone answering the doors so we went home ourselves, planning one of us to go back out with Simon after dinner while Lillian was in bed.
Around 5:30 when we told Simon we could go out again, he looked at the rain and wind-whipped trees and asked me, "Mom, who gets this candy if no trick or treaters come?" referring to the candy in a bucket by the door ready to hand out. I told him we kept it. Then he decided he didn't need to go out again. He'd just eat that candy tomorrow. Too smart for his own good!! He made himself in charge of the door instead. He got a chair and sat by the bucket of candy with the door open, anxiously waiting. He had a whole plan worked out: "Dad, when they come to the door I will put some candy in their bags for them, like this."
"But Simon, sometimes people like to look and choose for themselves"
"Hmm
ok... they can look in our bucket and say oh I want that one! And then I'll pick it up and give it to them. And if they ask for something else
then I'll give that to them"
"Don't you think that will be too slow if lots of kids come at once?"
"No no, I'll do it really fast!"
Sadly, no other trick or treaters came before it was bedtime... he was really disappointed about that.
On Saturday, after lunch, we let him eat all the candy he wanted out of the bucket he trick or treated (from Lincoln, not our leftovers). It was then that I realized, he has never really had any mass market candy. He ate his first Snickers, first Kit Kat, first Twix (didn't care for that one, just ate chocolate off the outside), first Milky Way, had his first lollypop and ate his first Laffy Taffy, etc. He opened every sucking candy, took one suck and spat them out. When asked, whatever he was currently eating was his favorite so long as it wasn't a hard candy. Asked after the fact they *all* were his favorite. He made serious inroads, but since he could only eat candy at the table he got bored after a while (about half way through the stash and maybe 30 minutes in) and needed to go play. Candy was taken away at that point and no mention has been made since! :)
Ready for school!
The megaphone has a button that made a siren noise.
Simon led off the pre-k class in the parade because he was being so well behaved that day. Simon and Ms Roshea, Daddy in the background
On ground level, from left is Ryan, Ms Walker, Jack, Liam, Elisabeth (?) and Simon
More of his class is up on the steps.
Lucy, Ms Zairel, Maeve
Lillian loved the parade and saying hi to all the new people!
Lillian did not love her costume:
Psyching himself up to head out for some afternoon trick or treating in terrible weather
Simon the Fire Chief and Daddy.
Lillian the Puppy. Simon the Fire Chief, and Mama
One of the few not crying pictures of our puppy
One of our final stops Trick or Treating on Lincoln.
Both kids were super tired.
You know they were tired because after trick or treating they played happily together.
She just laid there for a while... too tired to get up!
It was an early bed time across the board.
Waiting for someone to come ask for candy
I think I see someone!
Daddy's lunch and Simon's lunch
Rotating through 4 different lollipops and an assortment of Skittles
Some local moms and I put together a regular Thursday afternoon a play date of 6 nannies and their kids all of whom are within a 8 week age window. It rotates through the houses and this week the house had a ball pit! Lillian jumped right in (along with the kid who lives there) and played her heart out. The other two kids at the play date that week cried when they were put in.
On Sunday 10/26 we went to the Roscoe Village Halloween Parade. Unfortunately we weren't there at 2:00 when the parade started - I feel like we did that a couple years ago too. When we got there at 2:30 the parade was already over and it was just trick or treating insanity at the shops. We did go to a couple shops, but the crowds were intense and you really needed to push to get into the shops to trick or treat. Simon was so much littler than the rest that he was at quite the disadvantage. We headed home not long after arriving as Emily was not feeling great. (She ended up taking a couple days off of work sick. Very sick.)
Fuzzy monster baby
She didn't stop walking whenever the hood slid down over her eyes, so she'd occasionally bump into stuff
Adjusting outfits when we realized it was way too warm out for the number of layers the kids had
We were so lucky to be able to celebrate Lillian's first birthday with a great group of friends and family. It is amazing that it has been a year already. Our little lady is so very advanced for her age - walking around and signing/talking up a storm - and our lives have changed so very much for the better.
Thank you everyone who came out to make the day a special one!
More Frosting!
Chilling at the Hamilton Pumpkin Patch Event
We only opened one present the day of her party -
a Minnie Mouse from KD that sings a song.
She loves that singing Minnie Mouse so much. Alan took it to cut the tag off and she ran after him begging more when he walked away with it - she got it back as soon as the tag was off.
For Lillian's actual birthday the only present she opened was the one from Simon. We gave her porcupines, which she totally loved (because she's a Basque) and I made her a cupcake without frosting. I think she had a great day - but will be blown away by her party on Saturday!
Here is a summary of our girl at one year...
She walks quite a bit and prefers it to crawling though will resort to crawling if she needs to go really fast (like to get to something before we can stop her).
She says dog, clearly and frequently. She loves dogs and will talk about them for a while after having seen one. She is very reliable - when she says dog there is a dog, even if it is way down the street. Though occasionally she will call a squirrel a dog but to be fair there are some pretty squirrelly looking things on leashes these days.
She partially says a lot of other words - she tries to say Simon (Si), Jessie (Se), Hi (iii, with the right intonation), Up (ph!, mostly a lip smack)
She has been having a rough time sleeping lately. She goes to bed around 6 and falls asleep well, but will be woken up when Simon goes to bed (or he prevents her from falling completely asleep). On those days she will be up late - until 8 or 9 some nights. She has been waking in the night and while she isn't unhappy, she is not sleeping. Which makes morning time awful. She wakes up tired and is often only up for an hour or two before going down for her morning nap. About half the time she'll sleep for 3-4 hours and the the other half the time she won't sleep at all. She rarely takes afternoon naps.
She is such a climber.
She will laugh when you leave the gate open and walk/crawl as fast as she can to get to the steps before you can catch her - if you hear her laugh you better find her and stop her!
When she does climb on something and gets stuck she will sit there and wait to be rescued making an 'oooohhhh' noise, it sounds like the second half of uh-oh but longer and just as worried as you can imagine a one year old being.
She is quite tough and will usually take a fall like a champ. Even falls that would make me cry she just shrugs off. (She falls more often than I do though so she has more practice.)
She spends 8-4:30 Monday through Friday with Jessie and LOVES her.
She loves to gather up many things in her arms and walk around with them all, usually they tumble out of her hands as she walks and she drops the rest while she tries to pick up the one she dropped first.
She loves shoes, she will still lick especially shiny shoes but usually now she tries to put them on her own feet or carry them around.
She loves people and is so very friendly. She walks right up to new people with a book and climbs into their lap expecting to be read to.
She will bring you a book and climb into your lap for you to read it to her. She usually wants to decide what page you are on and likes to flip back and forth.
She signs book, down, more, milk, waving hello/goodbye, and hungry/food. Occasionally she will sign drink or all done, in addition book looks very similar to more right now (both very similar to a clap). She also does a lot of pointing at things.
She loves being tickled and if you make a tickle noise (for me a bee buzz and for Alan a rocket and explosion) then she will make that noise at you when she wants you to tickle her.
For the past year, I've been taking a random picture of Lillian a few times a week every week, from when she was a day or two old until her first birthday today.
I then used an app to sew them all up together to make a couple little videos showing Lilly growing up over her first year. One of them flies through the year in 15 seconds to see the development from tiny infant to cheerful baby, while the other is longer and spends more time on each picture.
She's changed so much in just a year... can't wait to see how she grows in her second year.
