Something Wicked This Way Comes

FLASH!!! Ahhhhh-ahh! Savior of the Universe!

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." My dentist bill, is what - thanks to all the candy I consumed today. We almost ran out - we had more kids tonight here in Greensboro than in our 4 years in Baldwin combined. And while we did not do the neighborhood Trick-or-Treat thing (henceforth referred to as ToT) with Lochlain for a variety of reasons, we did leave work early to participate in the boys' daycare's TRUNK OR TREAT (henceforth referred to as TOT). The TOT event consisted of setting up the trunk of your car with decorations and acting as a mobile treat-dispensing unit. The daycare kids then come out to the lot and parade around, hitting each unit and getting candy - or in our case, cookie packets (a lot of Loch's ToT bag was recycled into our dwindling supply that was given out earlier this evening). It looked something like this and of course, this:

Of course, Seanie slept through the whole thing. But this is what he looked like as a teddy bear:
And speaking of Seanie - I haven't highlighted anything about him in a while, mostly because he doesn't do much. That has all changed in the last few days - Seanie is now taking cereal 1x a day, is sitting up in his special seat that Uncle Richie and Aunt Cass got him, and is 'standing' up and playing very nicely in his exersaucer. Mommy swears he is almost an exact duplicate (phenotypically, anyway) of Lochlain at that age, except smarter and happier. I posted some pics in Flickr of these startling developments.

LOCH'S WORDS OF THE WEEK: "Help, Daddy" - mostly heard when he wants help spearing food items with his fork during meals, "Kissy" - when he wants to give you kisses (which is happening more often lately), "Teevee", and most of the Wiggles' and their associated characters (e.g. "Feasuresword" and "Dorothy") names.

We Don't Need No Steenkin' Electoral College

The polls are closed and the votes are in - with a narrow 1 vote margin of victory for:

Still, the Superman costume made an appearance today at our neighborhood Halloween Party.
Lochlain will be wearing the Flash costume all day for Halloween on Tuesday - my next post should detail our first Trick-or-Treating session ever! Thanks for voting!

Poll Results

As of Thursday, October 26th , 10:35 PM EST:
As of Thursday, October 26th , 12:35 AM EST:
As of Tuesday, October 24th , 10:35 PM EST:
As of Tuesday, October 24th , 12:10 AM EST:
I will update as I receive more votes............

I Got A Rock

It's that time of year: ghosts, goblins, and ghoulies - and whatever the hell Charlie Brown was supposed to be. Which brings me to my current dilemma - y'see, Charlie Brown's crappy Halloween costume (I know it was supposed to be a sheet ghost - but with all those eyeholes it always gave me the impression of some sort of limbless dalmation - or maybe a Shmoo that got one too many caps popped in his @$$ - but anyway) resulted in less-than-spectacular loot for his Trick-Or-Treat bag (e.g. "I got a rock"). How does this affect me? Well, when I pimp Lochlain out next Tuesday on Halloween to get me some candy, I need to make sure that his costume is going to be a candy GO-Getter, not a NO-Getter.

That's where you come in, blog fans. You will vote on his costume. You will get your friends to vote on his costume. They will get their friends to vote on his costume. And so on. And so on. And so on. Just leave a comment below with your choice (no write-ins, wise guys) - if you aren't clever enough to figure out how to do that, then I don't really think I can trust your opinion anyway. I'll update the site daily with a nice pie chart (mmmm, pie). Your choices are:OR

I had trouble getting a good pic of Loch with the Flash mask on - click the link to see why. Blogger's Note: The movie Run, Lochlain, Run! did not transfer well to Google Video or YouTube. I will burn a copy for Thanksgiving viewing (it is a 10 MB file) - but if you saw my "Director's Cut", I think the Flash costume would be a shoo-in.

Also - this just in: Loch looks like his Uncle Richie as a kid. Make of that what you will.

LOCH'S WORDS OF THE WEEK: "NEVER!" - said to Mommy mostly with prompting from Daddy; "Watch Wiggles" and "Wiggle Video" - repeated over and over again to Daddy since discovering them this week.

SeanWatch - Days 96 & 97

Sean Richard is a little over 3 months old, so when you combine that with a mild case of thrush (again), you get a 3 month check-up this past Friday! Sean is now a very healthy 13.5 lbs and 24 inches tall, putting in the 50th and 75th percentiles for weight and height respectively. He also got 4 (count 'em, 1-2-3-4) shots and a 5th oral "shot"-thingy; he took 'em like a champ! The doctor also said that Seanie-boy is doing great with holding his head up and being on his tummy. Bean & I have noticed that Sean is following (pretty much literally) in his brother's footsteps in terms of wanting to stand all the time - he's got powerful little legs!

Then on Saturday, the whole family packed up and walked across the street to Bur-Mil Park's Fall Festival - where we had the chance to pick pumpkins from the Pumpkin Patch, participate in Pumpkin Decorating, go on hayrides, do face painting, see a Petting Zoo, and get involved with necklace making and Bow & Arrow Safety. Sadly, all we ended up doing was picking a pumpkin, petting some dogs and a snake, eat, and watch square dancing and fencing demonstrations until Loch bit Mommy and it was time to go home. I feel the biting incident was partially my fault because I let him run down a steep hill and he took a good tumble from it, thus leaving him in an somewhat questionable mood. Sean slept most of the time in Baby Bjorn either on Mommy or Daddy. The high point of the afternoon for me was sharing apple slices with caramel with Sean (though he didn't accept any, so I got most of them to myself) in solitude on a small hill, and then going over to Mommy and Loch and sharing the rest of the apple slices with Loch - who did take the proffered apple slices, sans caramel.

Of course, you cannot mention the Fall Festival without mentioning the tractor display (OK, it was just 2 tractors). Since we are living in NC, I just wanted an idea about what it would like if Loch went the agriculture route - the results are below, though I am sorry that we didn't dress him differently (coveralls, straw hat). If only we knew there would be tractors there.......

LOCH'S WORDS OF THE WEEK: Loch will call Mommy a "Hot Mama" (with some prompting from Daddy, natch). He will often point to his heinie and say "Poopy" or "Poopies", sometimes before elimination, mostly after the deed has been done. Can YOU say "Potty-training-in-my- future"?

Happy Birthday Peepah!

Or, as Lochlain would say: "hppy bthdY PEEpah!" Since we aren't around to wish Peepah Birthday wishes in person and we don't have access to color printing at this time for our fancy HallMeagher TM cards, I 'll just put in some pictures of Peepah, his kids, his grandkids and assorted combinations thereof for him to look at.

LOCH'S WORDS OF THE WEEK: Why, it's a video message for Peepah, of course! Listen very closely.....

Someone Told Me It's All Happening At The Zoo

I do believe it, I do believe it's true.
Mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm
Mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm
Oh ho ho ho
Mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm

Yeah, so anyway, we went to the NC Zoo in Asheboro today. We went in the later part of the afternoon, so we only got to visit half the zoo (the Africa part). Still, in 2 hours we saw giraffes, zebras, ostriches, lions, monkeys, gorillas,baboons, frogs, lizards, snakes, desert foxes, antelopes, meerkats, all sorts of birds, and elephants - but no Rhinoceresseseseseseses (it turns out they are living in a barn while their habitat is getting renovated)!!! *WAIT* That reminds me - it is time to remind my brother Rich that Ace Ventura 2 When Nature Calls is a MUCH funnier film than he remembers (mechanical rhino escape scene, monopoly man scene, shadow puppet scene, Tiny Warrior fight scene, etc.) *OK - NOW BACK TO ZOO STUFF* So we have some pics of Bean and Loch looking at a gorilla, me & Loch looking at the elephants, and Sean riding an elephant.

LOCH'S WORDS OF THE WEEK: If you sneeze, Loch will say "Bless you, *Insert Name Here*" He also said "Hi Pop" and "Hi Patti" when they called the other day.