Halloween 2010

Halloween 2010

This year, like most years when Halloween falls on an "inconvenient" day, the base moved their trick or treating/Halloween festivities to Saturday. Some friends of ours were having a Halloween party and then we were all going on base to trick or treat together. I was a little worried how Colin would hold out since the party started at 1, which is right about the start of nap time. He had a blast running around with the other kids and seeing everyone dressed up. He didn't seem to mind the costumes at all for the most part.



We practiced all week long teaching him how to say trick or treat. He had it down after just a couple days when he realized he got candy for saying it. He's going to be pretty confused when Halloween is over and we don't hand over candy anymore for saying the magic words. I was afraid he'd be so excited after each house and having candy in his bucket that he would want to stop and eat it after leaving each house. Thankfully he was really good about keeping up with the group and the other kids and running from house to house. He was so cute in his dinosaur costume and he would roar to the other kids. He loved his Daddy's chicken costume and called him "Chicken" all night long. Whenever Shelby would get a little behind Colin would call to him "here Chicken, come on Chicken!" Colin hung in there for a good while and filled his pumpkin about half up with candy before he decided he was ready to eat his goodies.



Despite no nap, after trick or treating he partied it up with the other kids until about 10:30! He even did a little rocking out to RockBand on the drums. Here in Europe we set our clocks back earlier than the US, so we had to fall back early Sunday morning. We hoped by keeping Colin up later he might sleep in a little Sunday morning to help us with the time change. (Since I'm blogging at the crack of dawn Sunday morning this idea = FAIL!) Happy Halloween!

Wordless Wednesday

Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkin Carving

It was finally time to carve pumpkins this morning. Colin was very excited about cleaning them out and helping get them ready. We did all the gutting last night and roasted some seeds, then left the pumpkin carving for this morning. Colin loved pulling all the guts out and even had a little fun throwing it all back in there when we weren't looking. Carving the pumpkins was a challenge. Shelby picked a cat for his pumpkin because he wanted to to a figure or person that Colin would recognize. His cat turned out really good, but he did use a template and got to work almost totally uninterrupted. I, on the other hand, attempted to carve free hand with a two year old in my lap. If you've ever attempted pumpkin carving with a wiggly, excited toddler in your lap you know about how well it went! We are in the midst of potty training and Colin seems to do best when he runs around with no pants on. So, not only was I concerned about Colin being injured with the knife, I was also worried I would get peed on! Our pumpkin turned out pretty good despite a wiggle butt with grabby hands helping out. I should have given my pumpkin a sick face though, as he suffered a few stab wounds to the backside courtesy of Colin. Colin had a little safe cutter and was very eager to punch holes in the pumpkin once he saw that was what everyone else was doing. I think my goofy jack-o-lantern is going to make it though :)

Sunshine Pumpkin Farm

Sunshine Pumpkin Farm

Today we visited a pumpkin patch and farm not too far from our house. Every Saturday and Sunday they open their pumpkin patch and you can go pick your own pumpkin. They also offer a tour of their farm where the kids can walk through and see the animals and then they take you on a tractor ride down to the pumpkin patch field. I've been waiting all month to do this, mostly for the animals and the tractor ride. Colin is super excited by farm animals, just as much as he is by exotic animals at the zoo, lol. Tractors are a pretty big deal too so we knew the tractor ride would also be a hit with him. Today we braved the cold and headed over. We saw lots of calves and cows, a couple horses, pigs, chickens, sheep, and geese. Colin loved the cows and got to feed the babies, he also got to pet and feed the horses.

It's been SUPER cold here the last couple of days. It has gone down to 25 at night and barely makes it out of the 30's during the day! I had to scrape a nice layer of ice off my car Friday morning in order to go to work. Pumpkins and frost however, do not mix so well. The majority of the pumpkins in the patch were no good and destroyed in the freeze the last two nights. That was ok with us, we already bought our pumpkins and were mostly just going for the farm tour and tractor ride. Colin had fun rolling a few of the more solid pumpkins around the patch though. It was well worth the 5 Euro charge and Colin had a blast.

Tuesday? Wednesday? Just wake me when it's Saturday!

I have been totally convinced that today (Tuesday) is Wednesday. All day long I've been confused. I posted Wordless Wednesday a day early (your welcome, don't look for a post tomorrow as I'll probably be convinced it's Thursday) and I made arrangements to meet somebody to give them a dog Halloween costume for Thursday thinking that was tomorrow as I was certain today is Wednesday. Oye. One of those days! :)

Wordless Wednesday

Nürnberg Weekend

Nürnberg Weekend

Shelby and I had a long five day weekend and nothing planned. We intended to do some day trips, enjoy the fall leaves and relax. Then, after two days of hanging around the house we decided to hit the road and get out of town instead. We packed up Saturday morning and headed off to Nürnberg. We stopped through briefly once before on a different road trip, but there was far more to see than what we took in during that trip. We arrived Saturday afternoon, checked into the hotel, and then wandered around the old towne streets letting Colin run off some energy. Of course one of the first stops was Starbucks! Why else do we come to the big cities? OK so the coffee isn't the only reason, but we do get pretty excited over it!

Like most old cities, the inner altstadt is surrounded by a large fortification wall built back in the earliest days of the city. The area inside the wall here in Nürnberg seems much larger than many of the other cities we've visited. At the northern border of the wall is the huge Imperial Castle, which was fabulous in the fall. The architecture of the old buildings and churches is beautiful. There are many half timbered houses and buildings still around as well. It was much colder here than it is at our house, with lows in the low 30's and highs in the low 50's...we wore jackets the whole trip. We ate dinner at a traditional Franconian (style of food named after the nearby Bavarian Franconian Forest) restaurant which was very good. After dinner we wandered around some more and hit up Starbucks again for something hot to warm us up.

Sunday morning Colin woke us up nice and early. We got our coffee and set out to enjoy the gorgeous weather. It was cold but sunny and clear, making the colors of the fall leaves breathtaking. We checked out the Kaiserberg (Imperial Castle in English) which had spectacular views and scenery. We opted not to do the tour with Colin since it lasts about 45 minutes and it's guided. So we didn't get to see inside the rooms of the castle but we did get to walk all around the grounds.

Later on we went to the Rathaus (town hall) where you can take a tour of the dungeon prison below the hall. Built in the late 1330's it served as a prison and torture chamber for those awaiting "trial" and death. It had no windows to the outside or light and the ventilation was very poor. Back in medieval times confession was considered the only way to prove a criminal guilty. Therefore, torture became a useful tool in order to help people confess to their crimes. We toured the torture chambers which had all kinds of ancient tools used to make people sing. There were also a few cells where people were kept while awaiting their death. The executions always took place outside the city wall and the method used depended on the crime committed. Beheading for manslaughter, hanging for thieves, burning alive for forgery, heresy or arson, and burying alive for mothers who had killed their own children. It was very interesting stuff!

Monday morning we packed up and checked out of the hotel and went over to the Playmobil Park close by. It is super super cool and I was disappointed to see that the other parks, including the one in the US, are NOTHING like the one here in Germany, it really is one of a kind. It is a huge park with all kinds of interactive areas with life sized Playmobil looking characters. There is a farm area, a treehouse place, dinosaur area, pirate ship complete with water, western cowboys, Noah's Ark, and a bunch of others. It will be great to take Colin to in the summer because there are lots of opportunities to get wet and dirty! The cold weather limited him from some areas since there was no way to keep him out of the water if he saw it. After a good playtime we had to hit the road to head back home. Colin was barely able to stay awake long enough to finish his lunch and was passed out in his car seat with food still in his hand! He slept almost he whole 3.5 hours home, so I guess Playmobil Park was worth the money.

Family Pics

Family Pics

We finally got around to doing Colin's 2 year old pictures and family pics, fashionably late of course :) They turned out pretty well considering there was dense fog that morning and Colin wanted zero to do with anything that required him to be held or restrain himself from running wild over the castle grounds where we did the shoot. Two year old pictures are not fun!

I have all these on disk and can email whatever you want to you or upload it to the photolab of your choice so you can print what you want. Just email me with picture descriptions and then wait patiently....I'm busy these days!

Colin Fun Day

Kaiserslautern Zoo and KinderSpiel

Tonight we had plans to leave Colin with a sitter and go out for the night, yay! So we made the daytime "Colin fun day" in an effort to wear him out and give him plenty of our attention, so that come babysitter time he didn't melt down about us leaving. He loves the nighttime sitter and she would adopt him if I'd let her, but the last time he had to stay with her it was a nightmare. He cried all night and asked for us the entire time :( The last time he stayed was for Shel's graduation, we both had to work all day so he was at daycare and then I picked him up and brought him home and had to leave again to go to the ceremony. I hoped that by spending the day with Colin this time he would be better when it came time for us to go. It kind of worked, he had a mini meltdown when we left but quickly got over himself when he saw the neighbor boy and went to play in their yard. He did fine the rest of the night after that she said, whew!

Colin fun day kicked off at the Kaiserslautern Zoo, which we pretty much had all to ourselves, it was great! Colin got to run all over checking out the animals and he loved feeding them. The tiger was very active and walking around and Colin was too funny talking to him and telling him what to do. The tiger was pacing and he'd walk away and Colin would wave him back and say "come on, come on!" When the tiger would growl Colin would put his finger to his lips and shush him, and a couple times Colin roared back at him.

The goats in the petting zoo were possessed and they attacked us as soon as we went in! They jumped up on trees and stumps and tried to climb up Shelby too. Once all the food for them was on the ground they stayed down enough to let Colin pet them. He was giving them all hugs of course and tried to kiss a few. One little goat did not care for Colin's affection and butted him a couple times to tell him to go away. Colin was so confused, lol! Colin also really liked the chickens. Of all things at the zoo he was very interested in the chickens. I don't know if it is because they were noisy, or if it was because a couple of them were out of the pen and he could chase them around, but he had a ball with the chickens. Crazy kid.

After the zoo we headed over to a Kinderspiel to play some more and to get some lunch. Colin loves these places and runs around like a nut. He especially likes it when we run around like nuts and chase him. He had lots of fun and was sufficiently pooped when it was time to go (as were Shelby and I!).

Our "anniversary" night out (a few nights early because Friday is so much more fun than Sunday!) was a success. Dinner at my favorite, San Rufo Haus. Good wine, muscheln in season (mussels), great pasta, and the yummiest tiramisu (fresh and homemade by the Italian chef, does it get any better?) I've ever eaten.

Wordless Wednesday

Just another weekend

Just another weekend in the nuthouse that is. It started off pretty normal, Saturday we went to the Hitcherhof Farm down the road and got some hay, pumpkins and gourds to decorate for fall. On the way we saw this awesome house.

I love these vines that grow on the buildings and about this time of year their leaves turn fiery red. Gorgeous!

We came back home and set up all the goodies in the yard, we also got to head out to the garden in the backyard and pick a bunch more gourds we had grown to add to the display. I have the front door area decorated too but it's dark out now and I forgot to take a picture of the whole house. So, here is all you get for now :)

Sunday is when the madness began. Holy toddler tornado! He started off the morning like this, refusing to wear pjs and insisting on his super cool rain galoshes.


I headed down to the basement to do some laundry for a total of maybe 5 minutes and returned to find Colin standing on the windowsil and playing in the fish tank. This time a cordless phone and the TV remote went for a swim. Thankfully, the brand new sound system remote that just arrived in the mail last week (to replace its drowned predecessor) was spared a swimming lesson today. Both are on the heater attempting to dry out...we'll know in a few days if amazon gets more of our business for replacements. This is what Colin looks like in time out...

We've been tossing around the idea of starting to potty train and today seemed as good a day as any to start. So off came the diaper and we gave the instructions to Colin about telling Mommy or Daddy when you have to pee pee and today we use the potty instead of a diaper. Of course, we couldn't get him to remove the galoshes...

He did really well and excitedly peed in the potty just a few minutes after removing his diaper.

Retrieving electronics from the fish tank reminds one how overdue a fish tank cleaning is. Colin was glad to help.

Now I thought that perhaps he just really likes his galoshes, or maybe they are just really comfy...but no, I think that little boy is smarter than we give him credit for. You see, he knew that when we removed his diaper there would soon be plenty of puddles inside to jump in. He made it to the potty about half the time this afternoon, the rest of the time felt like a flashback to having a puppy in the house.

Later on tornado Colin stole the SD card dummy that stays in the slot on my computer to keep the dirt and stuff out. He threw it on the floor and so I made him go and get it to give it back. When he returned it he shoved it back in my computer instead of handing it to me. Except he shoved it right into the cd/dvd rom drive instead. All the way in. As in, not coming out unless I take the computer apart kind of in. As in, I shake the computer and hear dummy card bouncing around in there kind of in. :/ Urgh!

After dinner we decided to take apart his crib and convert it to a big boy bed. He climbs out of his crib with ease each morning when he wakes up, so there really is no point to having one anymore.

I am a little hesitant because I am afraid he will stay up all night playing instead of sleeping since it's so easy to just get up and leave the bed. He was super excited about his new bed.

We put him to bed and kissed him goodnight about 8:45. It's 9:34 and guess who is still up playing with his toys. Wonderful.
**Update - at 10:07 we open the door to check on him and the door won't open. We discover it is because he has fallen asleep on the floor behind the door. Apparently big boy bed is not as cool as he thought, lol. At 10:10 we finally have a sleeping toddler in a big boy bed. Thank God, now I can go to bed!