early morning blogger

Why am I blogging at 5:25 am? Because it's better than internet shopping and there's nothing on TV. Quinn apparently likes to wake up at 3 am every single night for no real reason....usually he goes back to bed pretty fast, but not tonight...so i've been up for 2+ hours and now that he's finallly sleepy.....I'm not. And I figure at this point, why go to sleep, i'll just stay up and get some things done when the sun comes up!
In all honesty I think I did fall asleep on the couch somewhere around 8 last night anyway, so it's not like I'm lacking sleep that much.
So I've spent the past hour or so perusing the internet. I've looked up the "official" white elephant gift exchange rules, checked my email, wasted time on facebook, looked up new recipes on the food network website (i found a yummy pumpkin version of paula deen's gooey butter cake that i think i'll be trying soon!); i learned how to make turducken....and pumpkin soup...
I did do a little "shopping" online, but stopped myself before hitting "purchase" on anything. Window shopping, I guess you could call it. I checked out the cool lantern candle warmer that Aunt Nancy had; I looked into the holiday specials at Sephora; I've read everyone's blogs and I still am not tired and I have an hour of battery power left on the laptop, so, I figured why not blog?
Aren't you glad I did?

ONE

Happy first birthday to Quinn!
I can't believe he's a year old already- this past year really has gone by fast. It's been so awesome to watch him grow and learn new things; he's especially learned a lot this past couple of months. He's running through the house, pushing whatever he can find as a walker- his prime choice is a laundry basket.
Quinn's also learned to climb. He's able to climb up onto the couch and our bed, up the stairs (but we keep the door closed to the stairway because he's too quick!) and on anything else he can find to climb on...he's a little monkey.
He's not walking on his own-- yet-- but I feel that's just around the corner too. He's saying quite a few words these days and responds to our questions with "yes" and "no" head nods. And he's learned to point: he'll point in the direction he's going to go, or to the person he wants to go to.
There's still just two teeth in Q's mouth, but that's not stopping him from eating lots of new foods. It's fun to let him try things off our plate and see his reaction to different tastes.

Today I'm off work so our plan is to just hang around the house and enjoy his birthday together, and when Joe gets home from work the three of us will have dinner together. Sunday is the great cake-smashing party day. I'll be sure to take lots of photos!

un.be.lieve.a.ble.

I had to take a picture with my phone for proof: they were practically giving gas away at MotoMart Saturday afternoon!
And also, I realized I forgot to post our Halloween costume with all of the Quinn pics, so here we are: Red Hat Society member and the Burger King!

Happy Halloween!

We took Quinn out for his first trick-or-treat night Thursday night; we only went to four houses, which was plenty for a kid who doesn't even eat candy. He did well- I don't think he quite knew what was going on and why he was in the monkey costume. He didn't act like himself until we took the ears off of his head, then he was back to his usual self.
I tried to get some pictures of him with his cousins, but that's not the easiest group to get to hold still for a picture....here's the best of the three of them:

Kinley's first Halloween:

Quinn, Rylee, and the pumpkins they carved last weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's house:

Hugs for Great-Grandma

And just for fun, another 'bitter juice face' picture. Apparantly, he still hates the taste of apple juice.