Oh its bad... so bad...

Remember this? It was our perfect Charlie Brown pumpkin. Pumpkin carving is a big deal in our house! First, I got in trouble for inviting people over for a pumpkin carving party... apparently this is a sacred and exclusive family event... then there was the hour long debate on what our pumpkin should be this year. This was basically how the end of the conversation went:

Adam: I want to do a pac man ghost, but I'm not sure how an outline would work

Me: I think it could work

Adam: Yeah, we'll just have to make little bridges to hold it together

Me: Definitely

Pumpkin carving commenced...

Adam: I'm not doing this very well... can you take over?

Me: Sure

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia came on...

10 minutes passed...

Adam: What the heck are you doing?!?!?

It's true... I ruined our beautiful pumpkin. The outline idea was sooo much better than my interpretation of eyes hanging by bridges. We'll be lucky if any kids are allowed to trick or treat at the house with the male anatomy pumpkin...

Oh well, at least this little dude had fun!

I need you to know...

There has been quite the confusion regarding the picture of John Dickson lying in a tree from a previous post... and I think everyone should know...

I am behind the tree, and I am holding onto him.

Whew! Much better.

We're Ready!

It's official... Halloween is a go... John Dickson has his pumpkin pjs, his pumpkin to collect his candy, two baby pumpkins - one for each hand, 3 pumpkins on the porch, and a pumpkin shirt. He also has his what is turning out to be a very unoriginal Halloween costume... what do I expect shopping at Old Navy, right? On Friday, John Dickson has a Halloween party at school followed by a costume parade, and then he'll come to my office for trick or treating. Friday night is pumpkin carving and then Saturday is all day tailgating and trick or treating!

Now... to Halloween and beyond!!!

Weekend in Columbia

I'm 99% sure we did not have a weekend this weekend. It pretty much went from Friday morning to Monday morning in a matter of hours... Friday I had an inventory for work and did not get home until about 8 pm. Friday night was spent cleaning the house, Adam doing paperwork, packing for Columbia... all the fun things that weekends should not be about!! The company for which I was doing an inventory observation for kind of screwed up, and so I got the lovely opportunity to go back yet again on Saturday for a 2nd attempt (which was successful, yay). I then drove the hour and a half back to our house to pick up munchie before heading to Columbia. Saturday was full of errands with my sister, dinner with my parents, and then a movie with my man and my brother in law...

Adam had won a giftcard to regal, and we had planned on using it to see couples retreat. However, the regal movie theater in Columbia was not showing couples retreat, or anything else I wanted to see, but Adam wanted to see Zombie Land. Going to see a movie that I do not specifically want to go see just always sounds terrible to me. I usually wind up enjoying myself, but the thought of sitting still for 2 hours and possibly hating the movie in the meantime just sounds like torture! And Zombie Land? That just SOUNDS horrible! So I literally had shoes put on my feet (thanks Jared) and was dragged out of the house by Adam, and my attitude was, well... an attitude. I checked with the lady at the box office to make sure the movie was an appropriate length of time (learned my lesson with LOTR... ahhh!!!), then checked with the guy selling us popcorn to see if he thought I would like the movie... he said 40 year olds like it... not sure how old he thought I was or what that even meant... and we saw the movie. I hate being wrong, and hate admitting Im wrong even more, but even I could not deny that this was one of the best/funniest moves I think I've ever seen. I laughed out loud pretty much the entire time. I highly recommend it.

We also caught the end of the Clemson game, and John Dickson watched like a big boy. He sat in the recliner with an unopened can of Coke Zero and just watched tv while pretending to drink his Coke and letting out a big satisfied "ahhhhhh" after each "sip" and looking around to make sure we were watching. He just gets cuter everyday. In my completely unbiased opinion.

Sunday was a baby shower for my sister in law, and quite possibly the last time I'll see Erin before Ella arrives! That is CRAZY. We are pretty stinkin excited!! I left my camera at home, unfortuntely... And then a trip back home with my little boy who made the car a smelly ride... he had a bit of a "dirty diaper/nap with no pants" situation that involved the walls, crib, bumper pads, sheets, matress pad and carpet, and his hair, face, and the rest of his body, and even after his bath, he was a bit stinky. Impressive.

Anyhoo... that was our weekend in a nutshell.

Things I love

Ok, you win. You people are way smarter than my husband and me... John Dickson did in fact make police cars at school. I appreciate the guesses of "croissants with little candies" and "boats"... these make me feel better about my lack of guessing skills. Why they go through the trouble to make police cars or other pieces or artwork that I know John Dickson himself has little to do with is beyond me, because THIS is what I love. Love, love, love, love, love. So, the floor is open, guess away? What do you think it is? Haha, just kidding. If I know John Dickson, I'm pretty sure this is chicken nuggets and backflips.

What is this??

John Dickson brought home some interesting artwork yesterday. Sometimes "his" art doesn't really look like it is supposed to be anything in particular, but yesterday's was definitely something. I stared at it for a minute, turned it every which way, and then finally had to ask his teacher... "umm... what is this?" I think once you know, you'll say "oooh, I see... kind of," but I'm really curious to see if anyone can figure it out. Leave a comment, let me know what you think! The winner will receive... well, nothing. Guess away!

Bon Appetite!

You may know me as Amanda, but my friends and family call me Kelly Ripa because I remind them so much of the Electrolux commercials. "How does she do it?" they wonder, as they shake their heads in awe. I can't give away ALL of my secrets, but I will let you in on a little tip I have for making flawless dinners in even less time than the recipe calls for! Exhibit A - Butternut Squash Bisque with Cheese Ravioli. Sounds yummy, no?

My secret? Just stop. Just stop what you are doing in the middle of cooking, and then serve it up for the fam! They will just go wild, wondering... what the heck is wrong with this soup??? Ah yes, Kelly forgot to finish cooking it. She left out the half and half and cream cheese that makes the soup a creamy bisque. This is more like baby food with a little ravioli in it.

But you're not done there! The next night, liven up the leftovers (and believe me, if you follow step #1, there WILL be plenty of leftovers!) by adding the missing ingredients. Pull out that food processor to finish the job, and then reheat on the stove until piping hot. So hot, in fact, that it splatters (and quickly dries from the heat!) ALL OVER the stove, floor, counter, and backsplash. Make sure to leave it on long enough so that the soup boils down to about half of the original quantity, just to be sure there is no longer enough to go around.

Voila! In the words of Julia Child, Bon Appetite!

Success!

You can sleep soundly tonight... John Dickson made it to Boo in the Zoo. I rushed to pick up John Dickson after work, get him home, fill him up with an egg salad sandwich, tiger-ize him, and get him to the Greenville Zoo. We got there at 6:30 on the dot. I figured that would give us a good 45 minutes to get through the huge Greenville Zoo, and we would be home by 7:45 and in bed by 8. At 6:40 I finally got to our parking spot. 30 minutes later, we arrived on foot, with dad, at the zoo. At 7:30 we finally made it through the gates. Marinate on that for a minute.

We walked through all of the inflatables, wooden characters, employees dressed up like weird clowns and penguins, and the "Not Very Scary House" which was filled with people handing out candy. John Dickson wasn't sure what to think...

John Dickson racked up on some pumpkin stickers, a pumpkin cup, a kit kat, a snickers, a tiger mask, a butterfinger, a Greenville Zoo sticker... yes, Im going to tell you every last thing... an elephant chalk board thingy with chalk, a California Dreaming tatoo that Im pretty sure will get him a free kids meal if he wears it to the restaurant... ok, I will spare you the rest. But the Kelley's should be glad to know, we also came away with some grape laffy taffy.

All in all, John Dickson could have cared less about the adventure.

On the way home, John Dickson was sitting in his car seat with a blank my-eyes-are-open-but-I'm-not-really-awake stare, when all of a sudden...

"A Britney song was on... and a Britney song was on... and a Britney song was on!!!!!"

Those little eyes came to life, a huge grin spread across his face, and he started clapping and bopping around to the music. Yes, its true. John Dickson hearts Miley. Apparently he listens to that song everyday at school.

So, Adam compared the trip to our trip to the lights at the National Zoo, which was a HUGE flop. Next year John Dickson will be able to appreciate Boo in the Zoo much more, but in the meantime, we're trying to open his eyes to the wonderful season of fall. One day, he'll look back and say "hey, thanks mom and dad for walking 17 miles and waiting 20 minutes just to make me walk through the zoo when I wanted to go to bed." I just hope he never asks what happened to his candy.

Hello

Amanda here. I thought google had accidently removed the tab that lets me change the actual layout of the blog. I wondered how they even did it. I finally figured out today that I had to be signed in as Adam, the primary account. Google, I apologize.

Hopefully things will start improving around here! I'm working on it.

In other news, John Dickson is back at school today. After a day of nothing but cuddles yesterday, he was back to full steam last night. His fever of 102+ is long gone. Thank goodness!!!! On Sunday we had to take John Dickson out of church because he was too interested in the hand sanitizer in the windows of the sanctuary. I mean, we sanitized his hands about 5 times before we cut him off. We had a good laugh about how he would not be getting sick anytime soon! John Dickson had the last laugh on that one when he woke up sick 3 hours later. Tonight will be our last attempt at Boo in the Zoo... will keep you posted!

Boo in the Zoo - another miss

Our plans for another attempt at Boo in the Zoo were foiled again today... this time by a little boy who feels like this...

Boo in the Zoo

We've been looking forward to member's night at Boo in the Zoo ever since Adam's first interview at the Greenville Zoo, way back when. Adam came home from work early tonight, John Dickson dug into his cheese, chicken nuggets, green beans and miniature cucumber (he picked it out from the produce stand... it was like 3 inches long, so I had to buy it... thought it might even convince him to eat it. I peeled it and seeded it for him, and no luck. But he did love carrying the pieces around...) and then got geared up for the big event.

Disclaimer: The pictures you are about to see are SCARY. The only proof I can give you that this is not a real tiger is the fact that the Greenville Zoo has no tigers.

AAAAAAAAAAANYHOO, the zoo was closed due to "recent rains." Lame. So we took pictures of John Dickson in trees, and then came home. Can you even handle the excitement that was our Friday night?

18 month checkup

John Dickson went in for his 18 month checkup this morning. Here are the highlights:

Height: 33 inches, 71st percentile (down from 77th at 15 months)
Weight: 26 lbs. 3.5 ounces, 55th percentile (up from 40th at 15 months)
Head: 82nd percentile
Shots: 3

John Dickson may have some lingering sinus infection from right before Lauren's wedding, so he will be back on Zyrtec for 2 days, and if his yuck doesn't clear up from that, he has another prescription for an antibiotic.

Dr. Greene wasn't overly impressed with John Dickson, developmentally, but she wasn't concerned about him either ("yet", as she put it). I asked her if development was somewhat hereditary, since his dad didn't talk until he was like 12 and wound up being one of those obnoxious 800 verbal SAT-ers. But she said no. Whats up with an 800 verbal anyway? I retook that darn test 3 more times and my verbal score never went up a point from the original score, which I will not disclose, but was closer to my age.

John Dickson did quack like a duck for Dr. Greene. He started that last night, and then during the monsoon today, as he was wearing his rain boots with mallard ducks all over them, he kept staring at his boots and quacking. It's quite cute. Only the way I quack, I sound more like someone who is imitating a game show buzzer, so that's exactly how his comes out too.

Check back later this week for pictures of John Dickson in his halloween costume (he's a tiger, did I mention?) Friday night we will be Boo at the Zoo-ing!

New Stuff

We haven't figured out yet if John Dickson has been making fun of us, or simply being a copycat, but either way, he has a few new tricks up his sleeve. Yesterday afternoon we made our way down to Fall For Greenville where tons of local restaurants set up booths with great prices on food and drinks. Where else can you get a Terrapin Rye Pale Ale for only $4?!?!? Not at any bar, that's for sure. John Dickson, however, settled for water and had a nice plate of hummus and pita from Mellow Mushroom while we picked on (devoured) some fried green tomatoes from Smoke on the Water, a giant turkey leg, and some delicious kettle corn.

On the way there, I coughed in the car, and then I heard a little cough in the backseat. I turned around to see John Dickson with a huge grin on his face. Adam didn't believe me that John Dickson was trying to be funny, so he started to cough, and once again there was a little cough in the back. Then Adam sneezed (for real) a big sneeze, and John Dickson blew a giant raspberry in the back, which was pretty hilarious. So we started fake sneezing, and he would say "ahhhh chhhh (no "ooo" on the end). He really distinguishes between the real and fake sneezes! Since then, if we have sneezed, he blows a raspberry, because it sounds more realistic. And if we fake it, "ahhh chhh". So cute! (None of us are sick... by the way... we are just a sneezing family)

John Dickson has become QUITE the helper around the house. If he finds dirty clothes on the floor, he goes and crams them in the dryer. While I was doing laundry earlier, he packed the dryer full of dirty clothes. He also loves to take paper towels and wipe the floor with them. He was quite upset when I wouldn't share the dusting spray with him. The other day, he spilled some water on the floor and all over his shirt, so I wiped up the floor and then gave him the paper towel so he could finish the job, but instead, he wiped the front of his shirt. We thought that was pretty smart!

Last weekend was pretty touch and go as far as John Dickson's mood, but this week has been great! He has been so much fun and has been keeping us in hysterics. Oh, and as of a few weeks ago, John Dickson has a new accomplishment! He has FINALLY figured out how to drink with a straw!! And how to shake his head no. See below.

Strong Willed

John Dickson, like his first-namesake (see below), who passed it down to his mama, is VERY strong willed. I have known this for a very long time... almost since day 1, and I certainly knew there was no way he could NOT be, but it has never been evidenced so clearly as it was tonight.

John Dickson loves to read books, but he has to be in the mood. And sadly for me, that mood does not often strike right before bed. Tonight I took him in to rock for a minute (another mood that does not often strike right before bed and tonight was no different), and read him "The Going to Bed Book." (Ash Mams - your mom introduced us to Sandra Boynton and we are hooked!) So John Dickson kept fussing and trying to get to his book basket next to the glider, so I figured if I wanted a shot at booktime, I should let him choose his own book. So I dropped his book back in, set him down, and he chose the book he wanted.

Strong willed.

The book... "The Going to Bed Book"

We read for 5 minutes.

More on the Pumpkin Patch

Because this dumb blog will not let me post more than 5 pictures at a time, you are subjected to multiple posts that will now be out of order, just to get a glimpse of John Dickson at the pumpkin patch. That's dedication on your part and on mine. Check out John Dickson in the mini maze.

We later went through the big corn maze, but turns out I am in a family of cheaters, and we cut through not only corn, but also sunflowers, to get to the pumpkin patch. I was really afraid the corn cops would catch us (they really call themselves that), but we made it. Thank goodness.

Did I mention the farm animals?

How about the giant slide that nearly killed me?

And of course, John Dickson found his perfect pumpkin.

So we buried him in a big box of grain.

Pumpkin Patch '09!!

John Dickson had his very first trip to the pumpkin patch this year... and as far as I know, it was my very first trip too! We (read: I) were on a quest for the biggest most beautiful Charlie Brown pumpkin. You know me... I get excited and make quick decisions... like a child picking out a puppy. So at first glance, you can understand why I thought this pumpkin might just be the one.

And then, just like that, a little kid tried to steal it from me. I thought it was going to be an all out brawl, until I saw this one gleaming in the distance:

But on our way back out of the pumpkin patch, we discovered the one. The real "one." The best pumpkin in the whole patch... the Charlie Brown pumpkin. So we took a picture with it.

I love my Daddy

But sometimes I could wring his neck!!! Mainly when he does not take care of himself... Feel free to fuss at him for landing himself in the emergency room yet again. Only apparently the last time he wound up at the hospital, it was too easy... too boring... so this time, he had the fire department come for what they apparently have a term for - an "attic extraction." My dad had gone to my sister's house to do some work in her attic, and was up there for about 3 hours, doing nothing, before my sister came home and found him up there in insulin shock. She gave him juice, and called 911, and before long there were ambulances and fire trucks trying to get my very easy and complacent (AHEM) dad out of the attic. His blood sugar was so low, they had to start the IV before they even got him out of the attic. He already had some juice before the ambulance arrived, and his blood sugar was still in the 20s. Thankfully, he is fine, and went home late last night. So if you see him, give him a big long hug, and then smack him around a little bit. You can tell him I sent you.