Halloween Weekend

We had an exciting Halloween weekend. On Saturday, we went up to Greenbay after nap, and saw my Grandma. We stopped at a park before hand:

He had alot of fun at the park. :) Then we went to "gigi"s house (great grandma... my grandma). He was excited to play with her.
After that, we went to the New Zoo for Zoo Boo and we met Killian's dad and step-mom there.

 Sitting on the lion in his bee costume

Jumping the in the jump-house in his bee costume. :)
He really enjoyed seeing all the animals again, getting candy at the zoo, jumping in the jump-house, and seeing all the scary decorations.
On sunday,  after nap Killian went to his dad's for 2 hours for trick-or-treating, then he came home with me. He was so funny... walking around to the doors saying "knock knock, trick or treat" before they even opened the door. Then when they did, and we said, what do you say killian? He'd say "candy please!"

 Mama's a beekeeper and Bean's the bee :)

 He loved the hat... so he had to wear it

 Ringing door bells... he was very happy about that, since he's normally not allowed to.

 Gammie helping Killian ring the bell.

He found leafs... so he had to stop trick or treating to jump in the leafs. :)

He was tired but had a great day! He's saying "trick or treat" and "happy halloween" all the time now. :)

My food journey

As I sit here eating lunch, I thought about how much I love whole, homemade foods. And then I thought back to myself pre-Killian. I know this is strange, but I see my life in 2 part... 1. pre-killian me and 2. Killian-me. Killian came along and suddenly all the pieces of my life fit together, and I became a vastly better person. I suddenly realized everything I want out of life, and alot of it is very different from before. Before I had Killian, I ate as cheaply as I could, with alot of processed stuff. Sure I tried "homecooking" of hamburger helper and stouffers. But I didn't put alot of thought into what I ate except for a. if it tastes good and b. if it was cheap. After I had killian, I made all his baby food, and I wanted to learn how to cook. So off I went to my grandma's house where I learned the basics... and I felt OVERWHELMED. I thought I'd never get the hang of cooking.. that having all the ingredients for recipes was hard and required so much work. I learned a few recipes and made more homemade foods, but again, they were made from traditional "american food" such as hotdogs, graham crackers, etc.
My sister had been cooking for a while, and had ventured into eating whole foods. That is.. starting with basic foods such as vegetables, flour, water, eggs, etc. and making meals instead of starting with things like hamburger helper. She was talking to me about cooking with whole foods and it seemed to overwhelming to me. I was still in my beginning stage.
Then, after I had about a year of cooking under my belt, I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and it changed the way I look at food. I started eating whole, local foods. I started preserving foods, buying my meat local from GOOD farmers. I started making food from scratch, even making my own cheese (which is actually pretty simple! Don't believe me? I'll post on that later) and I can't believe the difference that I found. I feel GREAT! I don't get stomach aches, I don't have irregular bowls (unless I load up on junk), I feel good about putting food in my mouth because it's nutritious and made with love. Killian helps me in the kitchen as much as possible, and he knows more about food than an average american does now.
I urge every one to give it a try. If you've been cooking for a while, try making the change. If you're just starting out, I know it seems like I'm crazy and you'll never get there. But trust me, you will. I don't even know any other way of cooking now.
And right now, I'm enjoying a delicious homemade mac n' cheese with peas I shelled myself this summer, a bowl of strawberries I hand-picked and froze this summer. And a yogurt I made a few days ago with honey from a local farm and strawberry juice from said berries. Almost everything in my lunch (except the pasta) came from within 25 miles of my home and I feel great about it. AND it's much better for me than if I was eating kraft mac n' cheese, strawberries with no flavor from california where they were sprayed with pesticides, and yogurt made 15 days ago and filled with preservatives so I could enjoy it at my leisure. Yup, that's my food journey and where I'm at today. And I feel good about where I'm at. I feel good about the food I'm feeding Killian... knowing that I'm fueling his body with the BEST food possible.

On a last note.. here's a little tip that my Gma gave me and I'm very excited about. If you're a small family (like mine), but you like to have dessert on hand (Killian gets a chair out when we're cooking to get a cookie  from the cookie jar)... here's a tip. Make a double batch of cookie dough, roll it into a log, wrap with tin foil, and stick it in the freezer. TAH DAH! You now have frozen cookie dough (cheaper and healthier than the kind you buy at the grocery store) and you can cut off cookies as you need them. I LOVE it. Even when we make a dozen, sometimes cookies go to waste. Now they won't , and I can give Killian dessert without too much hassle. :)

Last weekend and the week

I kept meaning to post about last weekend, but I hadn't uploaded my photos from the weekend onto the computer. So now I took some time to upload, I thought I'd update as well. Last weekend we went to the building for kids with a friend. Killian had fun.. though he hasn't figured out how to play with friends still.

While he was up on the apple, he saw a person dressed up as the mouse from "if you give a mouse a cookie", and he got so excited!

 Then he saw bunnies there:

 

He, of course, had to help feed the bunnies. 

We also painted, colored airplane pictures, and played for 2 hours while at the building for kids.

On Sunday, we went to goodwill. When we were in the book section, Killian pulled a book off the shelf about sharks, and in a second did this:

He is definitely a boy after my own heart. <3

We also went to the Barlow Planetarium, and watched a Planet star show. Killian called all the planets "moon", but he REALLY liked the 3-d star rides. He said that he was riding in a rocketship. (Did I mention how he loves space?)

The other day he told me that he was taking a city bus to the moon. He has quite the imagination.

This week we got to go to story time at the library. My school schedule doesn't normally allow us to, which is too bad because Killian LOVES it. However, this week I had Thursday morning off, so we were able to go. Killian gets REALLY into the dancing/songs, the puppet shows, the guessing games and flannel board games. He doesn't actually like listening to the stories, because it's hard to see the pictures, etc. But he loves most of the half hour. :)

When he had to go to my mom's while I had night class, he helped my 2 boy cousins build my moms root cellar:

Today, I had off of school, but Killian takes a music class at daycare on Friday mornings. Parents are welcome, but it's during my class (which works out well for Killian taking it, but I wish I could attend), so we went down to oshkosh for music class. I'm so glad we did! I got to see Killian in his element. He was singing to all the songs, doing all the hand movements, using the instruments appropriately. The teacher said he's normally the only one who participates. He really throws himself all into an activity. :) The teacher allowed them to play the autoharp while the rest of us sang, and Killian was the only one to strum it without help. :)

After nap, we went over to Amanda's to have a little halloween party with the girls. We just did a little song about spiders, ate cupcakes, and I gave out candy. Killian and T dressed up, but B only wanted to put a tu tu on. 

Here's Killian mad at me for not playing "tea" with him. (yes, the toy he wanted to play with was a talking tea pot (which he said was coffee), cups and pastries. And I loved it)

We have a very exciting weekend planned, but I'll post about that on Monday. 

Here are a few updates:

Killian's doing SO well with his language. He's saying 3-4 word sentences, and repeating sentences that I'm saying. He's understanding alot more, especially 2-3 step processes. He can take his pants, shoes and socks off by himself, and can put his slip-on shoes on by himself. He identifies 21 letters of the alphabet, and can count to 10. Potty training isn't going anywhere, but I'm not really pushing it until after I'm finished with this semester. Right now he's really into space.. and he can tell you want a crescent moon, half moon, and full moon look like. He loves space ships, rocket ships, moon and stars. 

He's saying "happy halloween" "pumpkin" and "trick or treat" alot this week, because we've been practicing. 

A few pictures to update about his playroom:

I went to the neenah library book sale, and I found this truck book for .25. I cut up the book and make wall art for his playroom:

He really loves it. I'm getting a plane book by the same author and I'm going to put those pages up higher on the wall. :)

Grandpa's Birthday

It was my dad's birthday on Sunday, but we just had dinner at his house. On monday, we went to Funset for a few hours. Killian had a blast:

 We went mini-golfing.... he rode the dinosaur at the golf course

 Hi grandpa

 We played air hockey

 We did mini-bowling..... Aunt Mary helping killian

 bowling with grandpa

 He loved funset... riding the train, playing games, etc. We played for two hours!!!
We've also been playing outside... we are raking the leafs

 Jumping in the tiny leaf pile

Weekend Fun

Wow, we had a busy and fun weekend! Saturday morning, we went to Boofest in Neenah, which is trick or treating downtown in the stores. Killian is a bumble bee this halloween (and I'm a bee keeper.. but I didn't dress up on Saturday). He can't remember trick or treating last year, so he had to relearn the concept. I taught him to say "trick or treat" and he said "trick or treat. candy please!" haha... he was cute:

Then we went to the rocket park in neenah:

Walking to the park

Riding the squirel
Then after the park... we went to my mom's fun show (horse show)... they had so much fun!!!!

Brushing Rein

Helping announce the winners

Riding Rein with Aunt Mary for the Junior barrel race (he only trotted)

Riding Mary's boyfriend Josh in the junior plug (yes... josh was his horse)

Getting his stick horse ready for the stick horse race... omgoodness watch the video of this one:

Then.. as he waited to trick or treat on horseback, he played with a dump truck and leafs
Today, we spent the morning carving pumpkins:

He really liked scooping the insides out... but wouldn't let me help him

Holding his pumpkin... very excited that it had 2 eyes, one nose, one mouth, 2 ears and a hat (aka the top)
After nap, we headed over to my dads, because it was his bday.. he had fun chasing the kitties and playing with the matchbox cars. When we got home, he quietly played in his playroom, took a bath, and went to bed quietly in his bed. :) It was a good day. :)

Playroom

The thing I lust over the most is a dream house with 3 bedrooms and a finished basement (and a beautiful backyard with room for a chicken coop). One of the main reasons is because I want room for Killian to run and play, and most importantly, I want a playroom for him. Where all the toys can be, and it can stay as messy as he wants (most of the time).
We've been in a nice 2 bedroom apartment since he's been 8 months old, and I plan on staying here until I get a teaching job.. which is another 18 months. But as he's gotten bigger/more active, our apartment has seemed smaller and smaller. Well on Monday, I woke up and decided that enough was enough. I have a small (6 feet by 4 feet) room off of our living room with a big window, that I've used as an office. However, I very rarely went in it... so I decided Killian was going to use it as a playroom. Since it's small, I couldn't fit all of his toys in it... just the toys from the living room and my bedroom (minus the train table). I also got him a 4 feet by 4 feet roadway rug from craigslist... since most of his toys are cars/trains. So here's the transformation:

 

Here's the office before hand

 Here it's finished

 The closet in the room... I still needed it for storage.. so I got half of it, and killian got the other half. Later I nailed up his baseball tee/bat too

Another corner of the room

I plan on painting some cars/planes/trucks around the room too... but that's another day's transformation. When I picked up Killian from his dad's today, I told him I made him a playroom, but he didn't really understand. When he walked in and saw the room though, he was SO happy! He kept saying, "mama made killian playroom. come play mama".

I also got him a HUGE lot of cardboard bricks off of craigslist (which I have NOOOO idea where I'm going to store)... and we built a fort in our playroom today. He loved it. :)

Mon Mon

OOH. As I write this, I'm EXHAUSTED. I have night class Tuesday, Wednesay, Thursdays... and I'm in a preschool Tu/Th mornings for 3 hours.... Killian and I have been so busy and tired, I feel like we NEVER catch up. This weekend didn't help.

But let's catch up... on Thursday, I didn't have night class, so Killian and I got to spend some much needed time together. We went swimming, and just enjoyed each other all night long. Friday was another day for enjoying each other, though Friday night we went to my mom's for dinner (it was her 50th Bday).

Then Saturday, we had soccer, went to the park, and finally we went to the little farmer with my mom and sister. After the little farmer, we went out for ice cream, came home, and had a movie night with popcorn in "mama bed".

Today... today, today, today. Today was my mom's 50th Bday party surprise... we've been planning it for over 2 months.. and it's been hours and hours of work. This morning Killian and I spent 2 hours outside/at parks trying to wear him out. He finally fell asleep in the car, and I went to work organizing/setting up my mom's party. I had to wake him at 1:15, as my mom arrived at 130 for the big surprise!!! It was alot of fun, and it was all cleaned up by 430. We then spent another hour outside with each other, because Killian's dad came at 530 to take him for 3 days. :( :( Bean and I have never been apart that long, so it's going to be very hard on him.

So why is this post titled mon mon? Well that's bean's word for "come on", and it's been his new thing lately... telling me to "mon mama, mon". I LOVE it. <3

Photo updates:

 Bean and I went for a walk/park with Amanda and the girls... here he is singing wheels on the bus very loudly to the girls.

 Lawn mower fun... he LOVES it

 Filling up "killian's pink car" with gas

 Riding in the hay wagon at gammies... he knows EXACTLY what to do when it comes to feeding the horses.. and the last part is riding the haycart back to the barn

 Then he runs out to the pasture and pretends to be a horse and eats the hay

 Playing football... I taught him TOUCHDOWN

 Running to me with the football

 Then, he laid it down, and started rolling the football around

 He sat down quietly and started to color

 At my mom's party... some friends got her a money tree

He rode on josh's back... hanging on like a monkey... OH I LOVE MY BOY