The First Trick or Treat

Last year, Alexander had a great time handing out candy but this year he was excited to go trick or treating himself. The Olsons came up so that he (dressed as a vampire) and Akira (Tinkerbell) could go out in our neighborhood together.

Greeting the first trick or treaters of the evening....

While eating this lollipop (from our candy bowl) Alexander hands me a candy bar and asks me to open it...(that didn't happen!)

Alyssa as a puppy...

Everyone posing before we head out...(too busy eating lollipops to stop and smile)...

Somehow we convince them...

Then I get lucky and get another big smile (in the nanosecond he removes the lollipop):

Showing off his candy bag from Grandma...

And off we go...(note: Alexander is still eating candy)...

The first house (Alexander's first trick or treat...he was pretty happy as he walked away with more candy in his bag)!

Chanting "next house, next house" they ran down the sidewalk...



Now he is getting the hang of it...ran right up by himself (note: he holds out his hand to get the candy rather than the bag) :-)


Akira was the "experienced" one so she lead Alexander by the hand from house to house...

Discussing who will ring the bell and then waiting anxiously...

The people in this house took Halloween to a whole new level...Alexander was fascinated with the "graveyard"...

All the walking had taken its toll...had to sit down for a break...(oh and check into what candy he has in his bag)...he was quickly joined by Akira...

Alexander finally got the idea that people wanted to put candy into his bag rather than hand it too him so after he would say "trick or treat" (which sound liked "k-treat") he would set his bag on the ground in front of the person and point to it (so people had to lean down and put the candy in the bag for him). This time, as soon as the door closed, he had to have a seat and see what had been added.

A few more houses and then he found another place to have little rest.

We are within two houses from home...although we have been only up and down our street (so about 2 blocks total), it has been over an hour and Alexander has reached his breaking point. I finally stand firm about no more candy (he had been eating it non-stop the entire hour) so Alexander decides to lay down and have a pretty serious tantrum...

First face down...

Now rolled over and screaming...

In a grand gesture, he rips off his cape...

And mom picks him up and carries him home (where he made a quick recovery and took over handing out candy with daddy).

Halloween Festival

Sam's 1st Birthday Party

We were actually in Nebraska just in time to go to Sam's first birthday party! We were so excited to be there and we had such a great time with the Kassmeier and Beck families!

One of the only pictures I could get of Alexander and Sam standing together...

Sammy's firetruck cake...

First Haircut

After much anticipation, Alexander got his first haircut today. I had planned to take him to a special salon for kids but Fred thought that seemed a little girly so we ended up going to Fred's barber. We had to wait for a few minutes and I was concerned Alexander was going to have too much time to decide he had no interest in being there. We took a couple "before" pictures so we could remember how long his hair had gotten.

Then it was time for Alexander to climb into the barber chair. He got to turn the razor on and off a couple times and then on went the smock. And, out came the emergency pacifier, which was needed to calm some nerves.

Alexander immediately tried to climb down so we decided that it would be better if he sat on daddy's lap. He did well for the first snips with the scissors, but we had some tears when it was time for the razor.

Thankfully, Bob (the barber) was a seasoned pro. I would have stopped at the first tear. Alexander got a certificate with a lock of his hair for his baby book and Fred and I decided that while we took a baby in to the barbershop, we left with a little boy.

Halloween

For a couple of weeks before Halloween, I had been buying candy and adding it to a very large black bucket in our living room. It is not a room we are in very often and thus, the bucket had largely had gone unnoticed. A couple days before Halloween, however, I come upon Alexander with a huge smile, pulling the very large pail of candy across the room. It was just a few minutes before he had dumped it out on the floor and was laughing and throwing candy and having a great time.

The next day, he found the smaller bucket of candy, but alas must have determined that was not as much fun as once again, he found and dumped the entire large pail of candy. Despite the large pile of candy on the floor, he even had to practically climb into the pail to make sure he had every last one of the pieces out and in the pile. He had a great time once again and I was just relieved he didn't realize how much he would enjoy what was inside the wrappers!




Finally, the big day came. Alexander got dressed up in his monkey costume and headed outside to greet the trick-or-treaters. He really got into the spirit and insisted on handing out all the candy himself. (He did very well and only once did he try to take candy out of a child's bag rather than put candy in!)