Pop Rocks

In the spirit if Halloween and eating candy we gave Beckett a pop rock to eat. I hope you enjoy the results as much as we did. Babies are the best toys ever!

Grown Up Halloween Party

Saturday night was the grown up party, although since our standard babysitter swapper was also invited to the party we just took Beckett along. I made his costume. I mean made like I sewed it. I made it out of a t-shirt. I'm pretty proud of myself. Of course that's because you can't see it up close and see what a rotten job I did. However, it stayed together the whole night and nothing fell off or ripped so it must be counted a success. So without further ado here is the becostumed Beckett.

So what is Beckett you say. Why he is a Money Beet, of course. Perhaps Beckett in context will help.

Still unsure? Well then you obviously do not love The Office. We went as Dwight, Angela, and a Money Beet. A Money Beet? "First rule in roadside beet sales: the most attractive beets on top. The ones that make you pull the car over and go, 'wow, I need this beet right now.' Those are the money beets."

We have many friends who also love The Office. Here's Ryan and Kelly. (Aka Jenny and Tom.)

The ladies of The Office. Here we have the addition of Halloween Pam (Jill). I look weird in all these pictures because I'm doing my uptight Angela face.

The boys of The Office. They are about to embark on a sales call wherein Dwight/Chris will plant his seed in Ryan/Tom.

And here's our whole cast together. Jenny and Tom are perfect with the way she's hanging on him and he's looking exasperated. And Jill's Pam face is great.

Here are some of the party organizers and also the costume contest winners. They are amazing every year. Bryan and BreAnna Larson go all out. They make their costumes and I'm always so excited to see what they do. You should definitely go to their blog and look at the party slide show thw have up. Bry and Bre in the NYC. So here they are:

Cindy Lou Who and Master Chief from Halo.

Since Bryan and BreAnna organized things they graciously let others win the costume contest.

First place, Captain Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swan (Ryan and Shanna Farnsworth)

Second place is a gentleman from the 1980's giving his friend a present. (Sheena and Jason Larkin) It was based on a Saturday Night Live Sketch.

Third Place Plugs (Megan and Brian Porter)

Beckett the Beet got 7 votes but it was not enough to propel him to greatness and his mom and dad to a large bag of candy. Randomly, Chris and I, who both hate scary movies, won a prize in the Halloween movie trivia contest. We missed three, but if Chris had listened to me we would only have missed one.

Lois and Clark stopped by. (Alicia & Christopher)

Matt and Addu came as people from New Jersey. Funny on so many levels.

And Mary and Bryan were a house divided as BYU and USC fans.

It was a wonderful party. I wish I'd taken more decor pictures. They really went all out. Thanks everyone for a great party!

Kids Halloween Party and Book Club

We got invited to a Halloween party for kids. Beckett's costume wasn't ready, plus it doesn't make a lot of sense without Chris' and my costumes so instead he wore his pumpkin hat and "Baby's First Halloween" outfit that Chris bought him. Here is he learning to sit up. He's wobbly, but he's starting to get the hang of it. He can balance on his hands, but he if he gets excited he falls over.

It was a very well done party as you can see from the spread below. All the treats were themed and very delicious. Beckett was mad he didn't get any. But who wants candy when you can have green beans and butternut squash?

I went as a busy and stressed mom who didn't have a lot of time to do her new hair.

Here's Pumpkin Beckett with his pal Raggedy Ann.

I was stressed because later that night I was hosting book club. We read "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini. I almost cancelled since it seemed like people weren't going to come out to Jersey but they did and we had a great time. At least I did. They were nice and indulged me. I made everyone wear headscarves and we sat on carpets on the floor and ate hummus and dolmas and had a very insightful discussion.

Here we are at the end of the night. (Sorry Jenny, you had to leave before I got out the camera.)

Left to Right: Dawnell, Gretchen, Mary (& Abby), Brittany

Lost Locks Leave Lady Luminous

Today was the big day. I went and donated my hair to Locks of Love. I went for the Mariska as you will all see in just a moment. And for any of you in the city who would like to do this In Situ in the Grammercy area does free hair cuts for people donating to locks of love. But it's only during week days so those of you who work might have a problem. In Situ is a nice salon. They give you robes to wear so you don't get hair on your shirt. No capes for them. Here I am in the dressing room trying to get a picture of my hair before the chop.

My last day of long hair was supposed to be all flowy and beautiful and straight and smooth. Thanks to lots of wind and humidity it ended up and wavy, prickly mess. It made the chop less painful.

The stylist decided to help me out with some before pictures after she'd brushed my hair so I look a little less pathetic.

Aren't my half grown out highlights nice?

They put it in a ponytail and take it all at once then do your real cut.

I felt like a hunter holding my kill.

And here are the after, styled pictures.

Meanwhile Beckett was unaware of the momentous hair events occurring. He got to play with his friend Sheldon. Although in all our excitement we forgot Ghost Bear when we left. Sheldon had a good time too. He sat up on his own really well which is a first according to his mom. He loved staring at Beckett. It's only fair since watching him roll inspired Beckett to roll over for the first time. We have to get these boys together more often. Who knows what they'll teach each other? That being said once they turn two they can never see each other again because who knows what they'll teach each other??

This picture cracks me up because it looks like Sheldon is beating Beckett up. He isn't.

6 Month Appointment

Today was Beckett's six month appointment. Unfortunately I made it two days too early as he really turns six months on the 24th. This is only an issue as they refused to give him a flu shot before his was six months. The doctor specifically made a point of saying, "I know he turns six months in two days, but I cannot give him a flu shot until he actually does." Good thing he will magically be able to metabolize the vaccine in two days. So Friday I have to go back. Boo. At least it didn't take 3 hours this time.

So here are the stats:

He is now 27.5" tall and weighs....

As usual he's in 75-90%. The doctor also says that he's big enough to survive the night without food. So it looks like we're going to start phasing out that midnight feeding. I don't think he's going to like that at all. The doctor's advice, keep him up and hour later so he doesn't sleep as long and then he won't need food. I'm not sure I'm down with that advice, but Chris and I were out shopping tonight and he went to bed about 3 hours after his normal time of 6:00pm. Ooops. Maybe he won't need food and tonight is the night he magically starts sleeping through the night. Ya...right.

He only had to get two shots today. So he wasn't too cranky. In fact he had a pretty good time waiting for the shots.

Now, for the really exciting part....

As I walked to Beckett's appointment we happened upon some film trailers. This is not uncommon and I just figured they were doing some shots for one of the many Law and Orders. I was wrong. Turns out they were filming actual scenes for the CW's new show Gossip Girl. It's about snotty rich people on the Upper East Side.

Here they are setting up a shot and I realize that something is happening.

Ah ha! The chairs reveal that it's a show I've heard of.

These are the two main female leads. Their names escape me. B and S are their initials.

This lady in black stood around and talked to me for a while. I guess she was an authorized extra because they let her walk across the sidewalk. She told me she'd worked in commericals and my baby was so beautiful and had such a good tempermant. That's nice. The one thing that sucks about having a baby is strangers talking to you.

Later, after Beckett's appointment I was in the area and stopped in at Subway for lunch. Then one of the male leads came in for a sandwich. I can't remember his name either but I call him Jimdemort as he looks like a combination between Jimmy Fallon and, as Jenny cannily pointed out, Lord Voldemort. (It's the flat sided nose and cheeks. Trust me.) According to the website he plays Chuck, " an overly confident and sexy bad boy" and also the Dark Lord, who is coincidentally an overly confident bad boy. I was going to ask for his autograph but then I worried he would Avada Kevadra me.

Birthday Cupie Doll

As I wanted to party hard for my birthday I had to find someone to take care of Beckett. My good friend Jenny, who you hear a lot about as she lives literally a 5 minute walk from me, stepped up to help out. She took these cute pictures while we were out. What a nice friend to take cute pictures of my baby.

I love his little curl of hair. He looks just like a cupie doll.

Since Beckett was in good hands we were free to go out to dinner. As I was more interested in birthday dessert we decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory. The food was mediocre, but the cheesecake was awesome. I ate a turtle nutty, chocolaty, carameley piece of heaven. Then I got a piece of key lime to go. Chris was supposed to pretend it was for him, but he made a point of telling the waiter he was too full and he wasn't going to be eating any of it. He did have a bite at home later, but I did eat most of it. And I liked it, so there!

Then we went to a movie. I know this doesn't sound stellar, but trust me, this was a lot of fun as we haven't gone to a move in about 6 months. We went to Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

I enjoyed it although I do not think that Mary Queen of Scots had a Scottish accent as portrayed in the film since she was raised in the French court from a very young age. I'm reading a book about Mary and Elizabeth so I declared myself a defacto expert.

All in all it was a nice birthday and not too traumatic. I can't wait for my present from Chris to arrive so I can be a rocking guitar hero with my Wii. Oh Nintendo, why won't you ship it?