Halloween

We've had a great Halloween week! I'm feeling much better, my father was released from the hospital late Wednesday, and we've been Halloween party fools! Micah was dressed up as a dragon for Halloween (we had a hand-me-down costume from our friends Jen and Dave). We kicked off Halloween with a parade and party at Micah's daycare:

After the daycare party, we went to Kidville for a Halloween party and Little Maestros concert! Micah had a ton of fun dancing and clapping.

Today, we went to celebrate my niece's 2nd birthday. Unfortunately, Micah was a bit cranky, and we forgot to take pictures of him in his Jack-o-Lantern shirt. We made a chocolate peanut butter Mickey Mouse cake for Peyton, and it was a big hit! What could be bad about Mickey, balloons and peanut butter?

After my niece's party, Micah took a long nap in the car. We decided to swing by Micah's friend Zach's birthday party. I had also made a birthday cake for him - ELMO!!

We arrived quite late (and had to wait for Micah to wake up from his nap), so we missed the Little Maestro's performance, but he still had fun playing with all the gym equipment.

Tonight, Elliot took Micah out trick or treating for a bit. We had a mad rush of kids, so it was a good thing they went out - without their treats, we would have run out of candy for the kids coming by! As Elliot says, reduce, reuse, recycle!

Micah is now quietly tucked away in bed. We're exhausted, and I have to pack and get ready for ANOTHER business trip tomorrow. I'm off to Minneapolis - I hear it is FREEZING there.

Three Questions

Today I have an EXTREMELY serious topic to discuss. I'm having a horrible time making a decision about some life-altering choices, so I thought the best thing to do was to seek some input. First things first:

Apparently, I am way behind on planning Micah's first birthday party. I have no theme, and no cake choice made yet. Scoff if you must, but apparently I'm delinquent in my psychotic, obsessive, birthday-crazy mommy duties. Here are the ideas I've had so far - please feel free to throw out a few additional ideas!

• Jungle Animals (maybe complete with some jungle trees and vines, lions, elephants, tigers, etc.
  
• Barn/Farm Animals
• Elmo
• Doggy
• First Birthday Theme - "hugs and stitches"
  

Now, on to my next critical "life or death" decision - what should Micah be for Halloween this year? He has a costume party birthday to attend on Halloween, and of course we'll have to take him trick or treating, and I figure he'll look adorable in his costume for his 10 month photos. Apparently, everyone in our playgroup has already bought a costume, and we need to catch up! Here are a few of my thoughts, but please feel free to propose your own recommendations:

• Some kind of cute & cuddly animal. I've seen penguins, monkeys, lions, teddy bears, leopards, tigers, frogs, bunnies, chicks . . . what do you think?
• Elmo - they must have elmo costumes, right?
• Bam Bam - Micah keeps banging everything, so we thought it was appropriate

Finally, last, but not least, I am in the process of buying a new cell phone. I use my cell phone for both personal and work. I use the internet and check my email on a regular basis. I was debating getting the iphone, but I really like having a tactile keyboard (the onscreen iphone keyboard just doesn't quite cut it, and the service for AT&T kind of sucks here). I have now narrowed my choices down to:

• Palm Pre
• Blackberry Curve

Do any of you have these phones? What do you think? I currently have a Palm, so I do like their phones. The Pre has a touch screen with some cool features/capabilities and a slide out keyboard. The Blackberry would give me easier access to email, has a smaller screen, and everything is operated with the little mouseball on the front - no touch screen access. Decisions, decisions!

Hopefully, by the time this post goes up, I'll have set up some polls for you on the right-hand side of my blog so you can vote on these serious questions!