Picture Post and Halloween Fun

Lots of fun activities this month for fall and Halloween - and it's finally cool enough to get out and enjoy it all.

We took the kids to a pumpkin patch recently. The boys had a great time with one of the little red wagons they provided to pick pumpkins with.


Ben in the pumpkins with scarecrows in the background.


Emma likes the straw.


Had to get a picture of all 3 in a wagon.


Ben really wanted to take this wagon home with us.

Cousin Havyn's 4th birthday is this month and she invited us to Chuck E. Cheeses to celebrate with her.


Uncle Matt and Ben.

Mom and the kids all went to the Botanical Gardens of the Ozarks for a pumpkin hunt.


The boys sporting their mini-pumpkins (after we got home 'cause Mom forgot the camera).

Then we had our Northwest Arkansas Mom's Playgroup Halloween costume party last Friday night.


Our super-cute scarecrows!


Are they excited enough?


We even dressed Miss Emma up (cheerleader costume courtesy of Mimama). Go Team Daddy!


All the kids looked so cute! They are all lined up to hit the pinata.


Ben didn't look too sure that he was really supposed to hit it even though Mom and Dad were yelling "Hit it hard! Smash it!!" =-)

Whew! That's a lot of stuff and it isn't even Halloween yet!

New things the past month:

Ben - Has amped up his question asking. Last night he got out of bed to ask Rob how a light bulb works. He also wanted to know how food turns into poop. =-) I took him to a free gymnastics class last week and after about the first 10 minutes, he joined in finally and seemed to love it. We signed him up and he will go on Fridays for an hour. Hopefully, as long as he enjoys it, we'll keep him in it until kindergarten starts next fall.

Jack - Has been trying to do things to help and then says "There ya go Mama!" Usually he will look at my tea and say "hot? hot?" then he will blow on it and say "There ya go Mama. There ya go." He's also been asking "That?" a lot. He seems to want to know what everything is specifically called. Last week he got a pretty ugly injury. Apparently Ben was trying to give him a hug while he was on his knees in a chair and the chair flipped over and Jack hit his chin really hard. Nasty, nasty bruise. To make matters worse, he then tripped over his own shoes the next day and fell down on his chin again! Poor little guy!

Emma - She can now roll onto her front and back, but seems to prefer her back. She can hold herself up pretty well but just doesn't seem to want to. I'm in no hurry for her to start crawling because I will worry not only about the floor being clean, but also her brothers tripping over her or landing on her, and then there is the matter of the fireplace. We may have to stick with the central heat alone this winter.

Oops... Where did September go?

Hello Fall! Hello cooler weather, and playing outside! And are we ready for Halloween? Oh yeah!



Emma

Miss Emma turned 6 months old last Sunday. She now weighs about 16 pounds and is 26" tall. She is in the 50th - 70th percentile for height and weight. Due to a snaffu in her health insurance, we had to make a visit to the Health Department last month to get her 2nd round of immunizations. 3rd round is on the 18th of this month and she'll be all caught up.

She is now eating oatmeal and baby food 2 to 3 times per day and is still nursing. Similac had a recall of some of their formula because it might contain beetles (!!!!). And what do you know, but the one container we had opened is on the recall list. Good thing we couldn't get her to take a bottle huh?

Emma's sleep patterns were great up until about a month ago when she started waking up every 2 or 3 hours all night again. She was doing 8 to 10 hour stretches before that. Two nights ago she did a 9 hour stretch finally, so I'm hoping it was just teething and she'll get back to good rests soon. She still goes down at nap times and bed time without crying or fussing (hooray!) and goes back to sleep in the night after I feed her, so that makes it a lot easier!

She is playing in her walker a lot now and can get it to go where she wants it to eventually. She seems to get frustrated when she wants to go a certain way and it won't move that way, but most of the time she's really good at maneuvering. I had put the pack-n-play up in the living room so she could play while lying down, but she doesn't seem to like it anymore. The swing has been put away as well. Before long she'll be crawling around I guess. As of now she is not rolling over completely but can roll onto both sides. Hard to believe that in 6 short months she will probably be walking!

Right now her vocalizing is mostly "Da-da-da-da-da" (sometimes just mouthed or whispered) and "na-na-na-na-na". Also growls and giggles and shouts. Whenever I ask "can you say 'ma-ma-ma'?" she shakes her head no and laughs. =-) Oh yeah, and she is shaking her head left and right. Hasn't gotten to the up and down yet.

I went to a local children's consignment event (actually 2) recently and got all the kid's their winter wardrobes. Lots of cute stuff including the Halloween shirts in the picture above.

Emma sporting a new Fall outfit, complete with leopard print hair bow.


We took a trip to Little Rock in September so that Emma could meet her Great-Grandmother (Billie Galloway - aka "Memo")



Jack

Mr. Cutie Pie is picking up new words every day and is getting better at expressing himself. Last month we heard lots of "mine" and "go away". Lately it's "donno" and "turn" and lots and lots of "Hi Emma!". He is also quite the singer. You can't really pick out many words, but he definitely can carry a tune (although he does have the words to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star down pretty well). Currently it's the ABC song which we are trying to learn in our home pre-school.



He likes to help with everything and gets frustrated if you don't understand or don't let him. He always wants to turn the lid of his sippy cup after I refill his juice, always wants to have his hand on the bag of trash as I take it outside, and always wants to help in the kitchen no matter what I'm doing.

Somebody looooves his baby sister!


This past week he has been throwing a tantrum at nap-time to the degree that I have to go in repeatedly for up to an hour and keep putting him back in bed. My solution since then is to let him stay up until noonish instead of 10:30 or 11, and then he is tired enough that he doesn't get out of bed as much. I have also moved his bedtime to 6 or 6:30 from 7:30. He still wakes up between 5:30 and 6:00 am no matter what anyway, and is in a better mood in the morning with more sleep.

Jack got his 2 bottom 2nd molars in last month which made him a bit crankier than usual. I'm on the lookout for those top molars and then hopefully he will stop waking up at night. Rob is getting worn out with the up and down routine.

Chillaxin' with Daddy


Ben

Benjamin is getting better at playing with Jack since I explained to him that he can talk to him and Jack will understand (as opposed to screaming at him or pushing/hitting him to get some kind of reaction).

His vocabulary and annunciation are getting better every day. Currently I am working with him on "S" and "th" - thing instead of sing, anyTHing instead of anySing, Thank you instead of Sank you.

Recently I downloaded pre-school curriculums for he and Jack and we started on Monday. This week we are learning to count to 20, trace and write the letter A, reading consonant/vowel combinations, talking about emotions, and learning safety rules (stop, drop and roll for one). We do pre-school for 1/2 hour to an hour 3 times per week and both boys seem to really enjoy it. We also have a craft once per week (Rob bought construction paper, glitter, glue and safety scissors) and they love that too.

Ben still says a million cute things every month. The other morning he was following me around and when I asked him what he was doing he said "I just want to come in here and look at you. Because you're pretty. And nice." =-)

This morning when we were discussing what to do if a stranger tried to take him away, he said "But if a stranger took me, you and Emma to Mimama's house, then that would be a GOOD safety rule" (complete with finger wagging to punctuate "good").

Last weekend we went to a pizza place in Fort Smith to celebrate Aunt Leslie's birthday and the boys really enjoyed the arcade.


Ben is SUPER ready for Halloween and loves playing with my feathery witch hat (which he sometimes likes to pretend is a "speaker").


Sometimes Rob finds both boys in one bed or the other early in the morning.


Guess who else loooves his baby sister?


All in all the kids are great and we love spending time with them and trying to just enjoy every moment.

Coming soon... Halloween!!!