Trick-or-Treat!

The time has finally come for Megan's first trick-or-treat outing!  We debated on whether or not to put her in the fairy costume or in one of her backups.  Since it was such a gorgeous night tonight we got by with two long-sleeved white shirts underneath the costume and no coat!  We added a hat later on to keep her head warm but the way she was running to the doors I think she kept her blood flowing!

Daddy started the night with a pep-talk and some glowstick safety lessons.  But most importantly, told her to have fun!

Megan was so happy to put the candy into her bucket herself!  The first piece of way too much candy!

Back to the stroller and on to the next house!  "I could get the hang of this, Dad!  And the cuter I look, the more candy I get!"

 
Megan made sure she got back to the stroller to examine her loot between every house.  Even if the next house was only five steps away!

We got home around 8:00 and Megan was exhausted.  But it was only fair that she have one treat before bed.  She loves her M&M's!

We had a fabulous night trick-or-treating.  I'm not at all sad that we didn't stay home to answer doors.  In the past years we've only had about six or seven kids show up but I know we saw at least 20 out and about tonight.  I was also surprised to see how many houses had their lights on and then just a bowl of candy out front - actually a very clever idea if you trust the older kids going on their own!  Although, the little ones are dangerous as well - lots of people held out the bowl to let Megan grab her own.  At one house she snatched about five fun-sized bars for her pumpkin bucket!  I think all in all we hit about 20 or so houses in our neighborhoor.  We were actually impressed that there were that many lights on and some people really got into the decorations and dressed up.  The weather was great and Megan had fun.  What a great first trick-or-treating!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from our little fairy!

We planned to take Megan trick-or-treating around our townhouse neighborhood on Halloween, so we visited the Grandparents on Sunday.  I got Megan's fairy costume at a garage sale this summer, and although she didn't want me to put it on her, (thanks to Daddy we got her in) I think it looks pretty cute! 

Our first stop was at Grandma and Grandpa Lewis's house.  About to ring her first Halloween doorbell!

 

So happy that Grandma opened the door! 

Unrelated to Halloween, Megan is starting to have a fascination with spoons and bowls.  She was mixing up a brew for Keeper and really wanted her to try her concoction!  Keeper is great at tolerating the girls.  I can just picture Megan and Alexa dressing her up when they're a little bit older and offering her a bottle!  Megan sure loves "her" pets!

All of a sudden Megan whipped out this straw hat!  Every fairy likes fancy headpieces!

Off to Grandma and Grandpa Gennrich's house for more treats!  Grandpa Gennrich thought Megan was a bee... nope, a precious fairy!  And she sure got smiley!

This picture is both cute and funny.  Megan finally figured out that she needs to use her nose to smell the flowers.  She absolutely loves flowers, just looks a little like angry and scary here.

Too Cute Tuesday

I took out the camera tonight to get a couple quick shots of Megan.  At first I think she was closing one eye because of the flash while still wanting to watch what was going on.  She sure has this winking thing down!

I think this one turned out really cute!

This one is precious as well... and the pose and smile looked sort of familiar to me....

Like this one of me when I was just a little older than what Megan is right now.  Maybe we do look a little alike after all!

Megan at 19 Months

Megan is now 19 months old and becoming more and more independent every day.  In fact, she is having no problem just "chillin'" on the couch, recliner or our bed while watching Mickey Mouse.  The pillows and blankets are fun to lay on and under!  There have been a couple times where Megan has taken my bowl of left-over popcorn, sat down to watch TV and said and waved "bye" to us, signaling that she wanted to be left alone and was content.  Megan definitely gets more and more fun every day and sometimes I just can't help but to sit back and watch her play.  What a joy to have her in our lives!

We had a very good last month in the bedtime department, even with the suckey permanently out of the picture.  Doing simple chunky puzzles was added to the bedtime routine - about 4 or 5 each night and she is sure good at them when she's in the mood!  From there we would read one or more books as time allowed, say prayers and she would be out.  However, this last week has become more of a struggle because everything else in her room seems more exciting than getting jammies on and going to bed!  Daddy was often called for backup when changing her diaper.  I guess Daddy just has what it takes to get her to lay still.  Megan would much rather listen to books while sitting on the floor or alone in her rocking chair.  But when it comes to actually going in the crib and sleeping, she won't do it unless we've cuddled wtih a book first!  We try to get to bed by 8:00 but most nights it's 8:30.  Megan will sleep until about 6:30 or whenever I get up to take my shower!  I think she must dream about Mickey Mouse and know just when it starts.

Megan's verbalization continues to get better and better every day.  My favorite thing she's learned this last month is to say "Mama".  Megan emphasizes the second syllable so it almost sounds like she is a little French kid!  She isn't putting words together yet, although she will say some sentences like "Where did it go?", "Here it is" and "I don't know".  Other new words this month are: Oh no!, Oh wow!, tickle, push, bath, more (mo), bee, bubble, buh-bye, wash, go, quiet, baby and stuck.  We are also trying to get her to say "Trick-or-Treat" and right now that is coming out like "Tee-Tee-Teet"!  I'm sure that's going to earn her lots of candy this year!   We have a couple flies in our house that have almost become like pets to us.  Megan loves watching them and shen she spots one, she will exclaim "Oh, a Bee!".  Of course they don't stay around long so right away she's asking where they went and loves it when they reappear.  She likes to read books to herself and most of the stories are made up of the expression "Oh, no!" and lots of laughter.  Auntie Rachel taught Megan how to say "go" when giving piggy back rides.  We have her tell us to "go" when we have her in the stroller and shopping cart too and she has lots of fun with it.  She loves the word quiet and whispers it with a finger up to her mouth whenever she sees someone laying down or if the lights are low.  Megan has also started saying "um" kind of as a vocalized pause and is really cute.  Lately, Megan even has started singing into her play curling iron - using it as a microphone.  I'm not sure where that came from...Grandpa?

Other new things this month... Megan is really enjoying bubble baths.  We really hadn't done many at all before (unless Daddy gave her baths) but lately I give her a bubble bath as long as she will find the bottle of it - which so far is every bath night!  She has really started to know what our digital camera is and that it can play back movies of her.  Megan loves to watch herself in videos.  I'm consciously trying to make more videos because it helps occupy some time.  Megan still loves to help in the kitchen.  The other day I gave her a wooden spoon and a small mixing bowl.  She was beating away really fast and the next thing I know she is taking her sippy cup and dumping milk in the bowl to have something to mix!  Megan has had a runny nose for what has seemed like an entire month.  I guess it's the age, the weather and just plain comes with the territory of having a toddler.  The last thing I can think of to mention is Megan's fascination with trying on and walking around in our shoes!  I am always pleasantly surprised that she consistently finds the correct match to put on as well.  I can't believe how well she walks around in all of our shoes - especially my big clogs! 

Before we go, here a couple of fun random pictures from the past month.  Enjoy!

 

My little extreme couponer!

John's New Eyes

Something exciting happened for John last week - he got Lasik eye surgery!  We had been casually talking about it for a while and when John said that he was close to being out of contacts and needing an eye appointment, we decided this was a good time to have him get the Lasik. 

I had Lasik eye surgery done on my eyes in 2006 at LasikPlus in Edina.  A couple weeks ago John went to check them out and get an evaluation to see if he even qualified for the procedure.  He was impressed with the place and their pricing wasn't too out of line so he booked an appointment for this past Thursday.  He switched over to wearing glasses the Saturday before last as you need to be out of contacts for a little bit prior to the surgery.

When Thursday came, John got more and more nervous as the day went on.  After all, these are his eyes we're dealing with!  We arrived at LasikPlus at 3:30 and about an hour and half later we were leaving for home.  Most of the time we were there was spent sitting in the waiting room or John getting prepped and his eyes tested one last time.  They gave him some Valium to help him relax and then John was brought into the room where the surgery was done.  It's a room with windows all the way around so we were able to watch and the procedure itself was being shown on a monitor right above where the doctor worked.  The surgery itself took less than 10 minutes and John said the weirdest thing was at the beginning when something was put around his eye and everything went black.  John kept his eyes closed the whole car ride home and then went right to bed after putting in some eye drops.  I wasn’t allowed to take a picture of him lying in bed with his goggles and c-pap mask on, but as you can imagine, it’s quite the sight!

He was up bright and early on Friday morning for an 8:00 am follow-up appointment.  The doctor said he was doing great and even seeing 20-15!  He has a small red spot in the white part of his left eye which should go away in about three weeks.  We think a blood vessel just got knicked during the procedure but nothing serious.  Several days after the surgery John feels great!  He has a little bit of light sensitivity but he has been quite the trooper.  I think he is actually healing up better than I did when I had mine done.  The other thing that he’s noticing now is he still wants to take his contacts out at the end of the day!

So, overall the procedure went really, really well and no regrets – except maybe not having this done sooner!

Megan's 18 Month Photos

I had been waiting for a nice fall weekend to take some 18 month photos of Megan.  This whole last week had such gorgeous weather which continued into last weekend.  We took six month photos of Megan (and cousin pics w/ Alexa) last year on this very same weekend at John's parents' place which I thought turned out great.  It was a lot easier last year because Megan couldn't move around on her own that well yet and would respond and look at whoever called her name.  This year was a bit trickier as I think she only looked at the camera a handful of times.  Maybe this will become our little tradition of taking outdoor photos the first weekend of October?  (I can't wait for the coming years when she will hopefully let me pose her.)

Megan looked great against all the beautiful orange and gold leaves and her hair blended right in.  She had so much fun playing in the piles of leaves and kept asking for more.  She didn't quite get the part about jumping into the pile but was quite content just sitting in it and being buried.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from our little photo shoot.  Enjoy!

We went into the backyard to finish up and Megan picked some green tomatoes which never ripened and then her interest turned towards the apple tree.  A single bite out of five different apples later and this photo shoot was a wrap!  Thanks Grandma Lewis for helping out!

Sever's Corn Maze Outing

Last Sunday we had a little outing to Sever's Corn Maze in Shakopee.  We had never been there but has always looked like a fun fall activity.  We actually never even got the the giant corn maze and as you look through the pictures you'll see why!  We spent the first 45 minutes or so in the giant pit of corn....  Surprisingly enough, we only came home with one kernel of corn in Megan's diaper!

Then Megan and Alexa had a pony ride since it's Megan's favorite thing to do!  She started chanting "go, go" as soon as she was sitting on the saddle!

They also had an exotic petting zoo just like we saw at the fair this year.  Kristin and Grandma Lewis had to help the girls use up the rest of the feed since everyone was getting tired....

A couple photo ops on a John Deere tractor setup.

Megan loved these cutouts.  She had as much fun poking her head through as we had watching her!

I'm sure we'll make it back in the years to come and maybe we'll actually make it into the maze next time!