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.

We're Baaaack!

The 3 of us spent the past week on a cruise ship in the Bahamas- it was such a nice break from school and work here in Ohio....for five days, we did nothing but eat, sit in the sun, walk around the ship, take naps, eat some more, and relaxxxxxx. I read a book, watched some shows in the ship's theater, including a very talented juggler on a very rocky night at sea. It was kind of cool to be cut off from reality, with no cell phones, not much TV to speak of (the only news on the ship was from Colorado, so we didn't bother much with that).
Quinn did great on vacation- he didn't seem bothered by the motion of the boat, even on the couple nights that we were really rocking! We didn't swim in the pools at all- it was a little cloudy and chilly for that- but the day we stopped at Half Moon Cay, the weather was warm and sunny, and the 3 of us got in the ocean. The purpose of the trip was to go to my friend Chantel's wedding- they were supposed to get married on the beach in Nassau, but it was too windy and the waves were coming up too high on the beach, so they moved the ceremony to the patio of the resort-- which I think turned out even prettier.
After the wedding, we wandered around Nassau, enjoyed the straw markets, bought some fun things (watches for Joe and I, a purse for me, a t-shirt for Quinn) and then headed back to the ship for dinner...after dinner, they had a wedding reception in the piano bar on the ship. Quinn fell asleep in his stroller and slept throuh the whole evening. All in all, the week was great; it was our first time going on a cruise, and we'd definitely go again.

Quinn and I at dinnerWelcome to the Bahamas!

the newlyweds

Joe and Quinn in the ocean

our ship, the Carnival Fascination

us on the small boat, waiting to ride over to Half Moon Cay

Chantel and John's wedding

just hanging out on the ship

we all loved the frozen yogurt!

Quinn and I after breakfast on the back deck

Q loved watching the water go by

the 3 of us

after our beach day at Half Moon Cay; we got caught in a rain storm on the boat ride back to the ship.

say "cheese!"

Chantel and John cutting the cake

11 months old

In no particular order...

Photos from the past week:

Rylee making s'mores in our backyard while Kara was at the hospital having Kinley.
Joe and Quinn at Dave's wedding this past weekend
Joe and Grandma F. at lunch on Sunday in Flint The boys at lunch; they're both sitting on the table.
Q and Rylee watching the homecoming parade. Joe drove his car in it, but my camera battery had died by that point, so no photo.
Me, enjoying the Vera Bradley outlet sale. I'm sitting in my "discard" pile....that's all the stuff I didn't buy....
And here's me dragging all the things I DID buy! Vera's living the good life, thanks to shoppers like me.

Welcome, Baby!

My niece Kinley Julianne was born Monday night!
She's 7 lb. 9 oz, 21 inches long; Kara and Kinley are doing great and are both getting lots of sleep in the hospital. Kara says "hi" and I'm sure I will have more pictures of the baby as the week goes on.

Quinn's new 'do

Where have i been?!

What have I been doing, other than blogging? Mostly watching Backyardigans and Blues Clues, playing with baby toys on the floor, and chasing Q around the house....but when I'm not doing that, I'm catching up on dishes and laundry, working extra nights at work to get all of my clients in, taking walks in this awesome fall weather, and catching an occasional high school football game.
And trying to catch up on sleep during the day, since Quinn has taken to waking up in the night, fo no apparent reason other than to hang out with me for an hour or so.....EVERY night. Don't get me wrong, the attention is sweet and I appreciate that he wants to hang out with me so much, but really....at 3 a.m.???

I gave him a 'real' haircut this weekend. After last week's 'starter' haircut, we saw how well he'd sit for it, so I cut the rest. He's got a cute little boy haircut now. I have pictures, but that would mean I'd have to get them from my camera to the computer, and that's going to have to wait.

Also, in my "free time" (haha!) I've been reading the Twilight series. It's a 4-book series of a high school girl caught in a love triangle between a vampire and a werewolf... it's technically a young adult book, but it's good so I don't care that it's made for 8th graders! Anyway, we have all 4 books between us girls at work, so we've been passing them around the salon. I'm on book #3, and I have two girls who have finished 1 and 2, and are waiting on me to finish the 3rd book....so I have to finish it tonight.
I did get some reading in this morning, early, after Quinn finally went back to bed at 4:30, at which point I was wide awake, so I decided to read a few chapters.

And how do I stay awake during the days after my middle of the night playdates? Aside from my usual coffee, I've found a new yummy drink: the Burger King Mocha Joe iced coffee. It's soooo good. It's like a milkshake for breakfast. It's similar to the Tim Horton's iced capp's, but it's not frozen. So good.

Time to go read.

Bye-Bye to the Baby-Mullet!

Before: Q had hair-wings over his ears and a weird mullety-tail in the back.


After: Baby's first haircut! I think it made him faster, kind of like how new shoes make you jump higher, because this is the best photo of 20-some that I took. Also, we bought his Halloween costume yesterday, but you'll have to wait and see what it is.

We almost got blown away by the superman-force winds here yesterday evening, but we survived; most of the trees in town did not.

I think we need to buy him some more toys...

Weekend Update

More pictures from our trip to Michigan last weekend; Here's the boys, playing on the floor.

Grandma Featherstone, Kathy, Jer Trish, Joe and I and 2 squirmy boys. On our way home we stopped in Ypsilanti to have lunch with my friend Marci- we were roommates in college- and we walked around the campus after lunch to see the old places...a lot has changed, a lot has stayed the same! Here we are on the steps of our old apartment.
And the 3 of us, with our family EMU t-shirts we bought while we were there.
We took Q to his first high school football game Friday night, but it never got started due to lightning so we went to WalMart instead. The game was rescheduled for Saturday, so we tried again, this time with Lisa an John, and had a good time.
Quinn stayed awake for the whole game and seemed to like it. I think he liked it Friday night better, when the band was there (they didn't bother to come to the re-do) and he enjoyed the music....and hey, lets be honest, I enjoy the game more with the band too!
No big plans for the Labor Day weekend, except I guess to pack away all of my white shoes.

The Crim, and Robert

Lots to blog about, not so much time. I'll start with Saturday: we went to Flint so Joe could run in the Crim race with his Swiss friends. They're really his UM friends, but I call them Swiss....anyway, 5 of the 7 made it to the race this year.
On the way up Friday night we saw one of the members of the group, Robert, on 75 in the lane next to us, so we pulled over at a rest stop to say hi.....


And then we followed him to the next exit to his favorite place on this Earth, Tim Hortons... which I didn't realize there was one in Bowling Green, so it's a good thing we ran into him, because now I have a coffee-stop on our way north!

Saturday morning, bright and early, we made our way to Flint for the race. Joe was registered for the 8k, but ended up running the 5k, but in the end got a medal for the 10 mile. Long story, involves new running shoes for Joe and a diaper change (for Quinn, of course, just to avoid any confusion there...)
Anyway, we all met up after the running was done for some refreshments in the party tent and entertainment from a cheesy cover band.
And hey! We ran into Robert at the Crim!


Quinn and I did what we do best- we watched everyone else run.