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!!!

The Fun Never Stops!

We're coming up on the end of August, and still no cooler weather in sight. Ah well, plenty of birthday parties to cheer us up. Uncle Matt will be celebrating on the 24th, Gigi had a birthday on Monday, and Jack's party was last Saturday. Fun for all!

Jack

We hosted Jack's birthday party at our house (inside since it was sooo hot) and it was a lot of fun. Jack seemed a little irritated with us as we sang Happy Birthday to him, but he did a great job of opening and playing with his new presents. He enjoyed all the company too!













I think he was saying "open!"


















new sidewalk chalk (3-D!)













gotta stick that tongue out to open the presents!

It was either the singing or he wanted a different cupcake.

Jack has been good about sharing his new toys with Ben. His favorite words right now are "okay!" and caboose. He will hold up his train car from his Thomas the Train he got from Mimama and say what I know is caboose, but sounds like "guh-foose"!

He wants to be a big boy like his brother and keeps trying to get dressed by himself. When I got to him today after changing Emma and helping Ben get dressed, he had his shirt on his legs and was trying to put his shorts on over it. I caught him after he got into the Pull-ups stash today:





















Ben

He is growing up so fast. I think he's grown an inch since a few weeks ago when Rob put up our new height measuring thing in the living room. A year from now he'll be getting ready to start kindergarten!

Ben has been working in a pre-school workbook, tracing shapes and lines and getting ready to start writing. We've been reading a lot of books and he is starting to show signs that he can read a few words. As always, I suspect he knows a lot more than he says because I will catch him reading a word I didn't know he knew, or talking about something I had no idea he understood.

Although he doesn't seem to care for crayons, it may be that coloring books are just too plain and confining for him. This week he did lots of art with Jack's sidewalk chalk on our black side door ... and himself, and Jack:

Emma

Our littlest sweetheart is getting cuter every day. She has better control of her arms and hands now and if you hold a toy out in front of her, she can bring her hands up and grab it (and then it goes straight into her mouth of course).

She will be 5 months old next week and is already in 9 month clothes! She has another Doctor's appointment next Friday, so we'll see how much she weighs and how tall she's gotten then.

She's still enjoying her walker a lot and can entertain herself for longer periods of time.

We no longer swaddle her to sleep, and since she didn't seem all that interested in her paci (and uses her fingers now anyway) we put those away. She is sleeping 7-9 hour stretches at night and all we have to do is lay her in her crib and she goes to sleep all by herself.

She's only eating one meal with solids per day, so we'll see what the Pediatrician says about her growth and if he thinks she needs more. She usually has oatmeal mixed with something. So far we've done sweet potatoes, squash, pears, and today we did green beans and she seemed to like them just fine.

We can't decide what color her eyes are going to be yet. Right now they are kind of a silvery-gray. By this time, Jack's eyes were very clearly blue, so we're guessing she'll have either green, hazel, or brown eyes. Her hair is also growing in much lighter - maybe blonde.

Today after her bath, I was brushing her hair away from the new hair growing in on top and ended up making it into a Mohawk:

She definitely still has the hearts of her big brothers too!

Summertime, Summertime, Sum Sum Summertime...

Well it's hotter than you-know-where out (101 today, 102 forecast for tomorrow), so me and the kiddos have been trying to find ways to entertain ourselves until the weather chills out. In the last couple of weeks we all made a trip to Chick-Fil-A to play in the playground inside, then on Ben's birthday to Wilson Park in Fayetteville (early) to play on the playground and on the swings and in the sand. We brought sand toys and so the boys were very popular! That day we also went to Rick's bakery and I got the boys cookies that had icing on them made up like monsters. They didn't seem to want to eat them, but it was a fun trip anyway. We also made a trip to Wal-Mart - anything to get the kids out of the house. They love it - even Emma. Saturday morning we went to the Prairie Grove battlefield park, but even at 8:30am it was hot and sticky, so we came back pretty quickly. C'mon fall!!!!

Ben

Ben's birthday party was a lot of fun (and loud)! We took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese and asked our immediate family to join us. Ben was a bit shy at first - not liking everyone looking at him as he opened presents. Daddy had to help him blow out his candles too, but he loved all his gifts and his sheriff's badge from his Toy Story birthday cake.






(Cousin Havyn had to help Ben open his first couple of presents)

The behavior reward system seems to be working well because Benjamin has become a pretty well behaved kiddo. So far he has gotten to go to Chick-Fil-A (to play on the indoor playground), and has received a Buzz Lightyear and went to see Toy Story 3 with Daddy as his big prizes for 7 days of being good (although it sometimes takes a week and a half to get those 7 days). For the first few weeks he got daily prizes for being good too.


(Ben and one of his "daily" prizes)

He has become quite a good helper - especially with his little brother and sister - and will often try to soothe them if they are crying ("it's just okay Jack", "it's okay Emma, Mommy is gonna feed you in just a second").


(Somebody looooves his baby sister)


(what Rob sees when he comes home from work)

Jack

Jack has become very proud of himself for learning new words. He loves pointing to things and saying their names. He still loves having books read to him, and amazingly can name almost all the shapes in his shapes book (although it probably is only understood by mom and dad). He is also learning lots of animals and what noises they make. This week we have been playing follow the leader - he'll move his arms or hands in a certain way and I'll do whatever he does. He loves that!

We can see that he is starting to understand more because he can answer "yes" and "no" appropriately now. Also, he has been saying "oooookaaaaaaaay" when we ask him to do something (or stop doing something).


(Jack got a gift at Ben's party too! Thanks Gigi and Grandpa!)


(silly boys!)

He can still throw an amazing tantrum and wail (Rob calls it the "wahmbulance") but can also smile so gorgeously that it makes you want to cry with pride.



He also loves his baby sister and will point to the monitor and say "Emma! Emma" if he hears her cry. He also says "hi Emma" to her a million times a day and picks her toys up for her when she drops them from her walker tray.



We're having another family birthday party on August 14th for Jack since he will be turning 2 on the 11th. Photos to come...

Emma

Miss Emma is sweet as ever. She is now able to grab a toy that you hold up in front of her and bring it to her mouth. She has been sleeping 7-9 hour stretches at night most of the time. Today I am trying naps un-swaddled because she has started to get angry when I swaddle her. At 3 1/2 months I started rice cereal which gave her reflux (just like her brothers) so I switched to oatmeal after about 5 days and she does better on that. I also started sweet potatoes, but I'm not sure she is doing so well with that so I think we will stick with oatmeal for a few weeks and see how it goes.


(Emma after eating oatmeal - not as messy as the boys)

She is doing great sitting up supported, and usually loves her walker, but likes changing positions every 15 - 20 minutes or so.


(Jack isn't the only one who got a gift at Ben's party. Thanks Carolyn Carney for the cute dress!)

Emma is also giggling and smiling a lot more lately. Before we know it she'll be crawling around!


(Emma on her special handmade quilt from the Helmstetters)

That's all for now, kid followers! Gotta go feed the baby...

Odds and Ends

Conversation last night at bedtime:
Ben: Are you mad?
Me: No, just tired.
Ben: Does tired mean mad?
Me: No, tired means I just need to rest.
Ben: (after thinking for a few seconds) Are you starvis?
Me: Starvis?
Ben: Yeah.
Me: What's starvis?
Ben: Starvis is when you're really, really hungry.
Me: You mean starving.
Ben: Oh. Yeah, I'm starving.

Forgot to mention in the last post that when Jack is looking for something, he will wander around calling for it. Like "Paci? Where aaaare yooooooou?" Which actually sounds more like "Bapeeeee? Weeeeaaaaaaaaooooooooooooo?"

Emma is now doing that squealing thing which is funny because I think she sometimes surprises herself and her eyes get really big. The past 3 nights she has cut out one of her feedings. That gives her a 6 hour stretch which would be even better if it was during a time when I was sleeping the same 6 hours. Soon enough!

No Such Thing As A Quick Post...

Ben

This month Ben will turn 4 (on the 28th)! Hard to believe so much time has passed already. Before we know it, he'll be graduating High School.

I've been working on getting him to write the letters of his name. So far, B is it. heh. I have also been trying to review the letters of the alphabet and some words he used to know when he was Jack's age. He will be able to go into kindergarten not this fall, but next. I'm sure he'll be ready knowledge wise by then, and hopefully socially once I start getting him around other kids more.

We started a "Ben's Great Behavior" chart a few weeks ago. He gets a sticker for doing good things like getting dressed all by himself, picking up books and toys, etc. He also starts every day with 3 smiley faces which get taken away for things like hitting or screaming at Jack, not listening to Mommy, etc. If he has at least 1 smiley at the end of the day, he gets a small treat the next morning. So far he's gotten stuff like a bubble wand, a matchbox car out of the Cheerios box, and a cup of strawberry milk (his idea). =-) After he has accumulated 7 days (not consecutive) of smiley faces, he gets a big prize. His first prize was a trip to the indoor playground at Chick-Fil-A (also his idea). His next prize is a Buzz Lightyear action figure. We are still 5 days away from that goal.

Funny stuff Ben has said lately:

Jack went running into his room crying and throwing a fit for no apparent reason.
I looked at Ben who smiled and said "I scared him with my brain!".

Ben: Sometimes I don't love Grandpa Huber because he has a scary shirt on.
(Dad was wearing his pirate - skull and crossbones - shirt .)

Jack

Jack will turn 2 on August 11th! Wasn't he just a baby yesterday?

Mr. Personality has taken to screaming in the house and is not dissuaded by a timeout, or Mommy's angry face. In fact, he just laughs. I have been trying to spend a little time every day reading to him and playing with him one-on-one so he doesn't feel the need to do crazy things to get attention. He's great about going to bed though - no fussing at naps or at night.

Although he has his tantrum moments, he also has plenty of good ones. He is very helpful and will deliver Ben's juice to him, or his sleepy bear and Ben frequently will ask Jack to get him something, and he usually will. He also almost always says Thank You when you give him something (or "Kee Koo" which is his version for now).

He likes to wander around the house singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and the Barney theme song although you can't really make out many words yet. He has the tunes pretty well. He also loves to twirl and dance whenever he hears music. I remember Ben doing this at his age too.

Both boys love their baby sister and I have to watch them so they don't get too excited and poke her in the face with toys or try to feed her their lunch or dinner (or kiss her too much).

Unfortunately we had to cut the bunk-beds apart, but the boys are doing really well in them although we do occasionally find one of them in the other one's bed in the morning. Plus, now they can play in their room without me worrying that they will fall.

Ben is sleeping now from about 8:30 or 9:00pm until 6:30am and then takes a nap around 2:00pm for 2 or 3 hours. Jack sleeps from 7:30pm until about 5:45am and then takes a nap around 10:30 or 11:00am for about an hour and a half.

Emma

Miss Sweet Pea is now 15 pounds and 24" long as of her Doctor's appointment this week (at 3 1/2 months). The Doctor said she has the social behavior of a 6 month old (mostly, I think, because she was looking at him suspiciously - and cried when he reached for her - and he said stranger anxiety doesn't normally start this early).

She is in 6-9 month clothes and has been enjoying sitting upright (or standing) in her walker. She can move backwards in it, but probably not on purpose. She's always got those fingers in her mouth and is drooling like crazy, but I checked the boy's baby books and they didn't get their first teeth (the bottom front ones) until they were 8 months old.

She has been giggling more lately and smiling a lot. She is still waking up at around 11pm and 3am to eat. I am thinking of starting some mixed grain cereal in the evening tomorrow to see if she'll sleep longer.

She is still not taking a bottle of any sort, but after consulting with my Mommies group, I have a new idea to try. We'll see how it goes. Sure would be nice to get a full night's sleep after 4 months.

Emma Has Arrived!

Emma Katherine Shertzer



Our little sweetheart arrived on March 26th at 3:12pm weighing 9 pounds, 1 ounce and measuring 20 3/4 inches (6 days before her due date). I had a day of contractions at 35 weeks and from then on had contractions on and off almost every day. A couple of nights before she was born I woke up with a terrible migraine (very unusual for me) and it didn't occur to me until the next evening that my blood pressure could be causing it. Rob took it and it *was* high, but I was feeling lazy and didn't want to go to the hospital so I went to sleep. At around 1:30am the contractions started again, and at 7:00am my blood pressure was still high, so we went to the hospital.

I wasn't planning to have an epidural, but the Doctors recommended it to help bring my blood pressure down. I did wait until I was 9cm though, and asked them to make it very light. I could still feel my legs and most everything - just not pain. It was the best labor I've had - no throwing up and shaking the whole time like with Ben and Jack. =-)

By Emma's 2 week Doctor's appointment she had regained her birth weight and then some - almost 10 pounds! She will be 7 weeks old tomorrow and is about 13 pounds now.

She's not sleeping through the night yet, but yesterday she did several 5 hour stints between feedings. Today, not so much. Hopefully since she is past the 12 pound mark she will start sleeping longer at night. Fingers crossed!

So far she does not like her paci (which we are fine with) and won't take a bottle either (which we are not so fine with). Other than that she is a little sweetie and her brothers adore her.

Jack

Jack has become quite vocal! He makes all sorts of grunts and growls and screams and can throw a class A tantrum at any time (and does, several times a day). He is often jealous of Ben and Emma when we give them attention so we're trying hard to make sure he gets his share.

He has started singing although he can't say the words to anything quite yet. He likes the Alphabet song, Twinkle Twinkle, and Itsy Bitsy Spider. I sing Twinkle Twinkle to him in his room before his nap and he either hums or sings along and giggles. When I come to the "up above the world so high" part he always looks up and points to the ceiling.

He can say a lot of words pretty clearly and can otherwise get the point across if he wants something. He's also started putting together phrases like "Hi Daddy!" and is in general a little giggle box. Doesn't take much to amuse him and his laughter is infectious. He also likes to let Ben pull him around in the wagon outside a lot. Let's see... his play kitchen gets a lot of use too. He will get his little plastic frying pan, put his chicken nuggets from dinner in it, put it on his stove and push the button that makes the cooking noise and then take it to the coffee table and stir it up.

Whenever a vehicle with a siren goes by outside he runs to the window and says "car? car?". He likes to point at the bunnies outside and if you aren't watching him, he will follow them wherever they run off to.

Grandpa Huber assembled the bunk bed in the boy's room and Jack did very well in the bottom bunk with rails for about a month until he figured out how to climb out and then wouldn't stay in bed for naps or bedtime. One day I found him on the top bunk so he is now back in the pack-n-play beside the bunk bed until we think he's ready.


Playing with Mommy's hat.


Letting his big brother pull him around the yard.


Ben

Ben is our little chatterbox. He pretty much talks, sings or makes some sort of noise from the second he wakes up until he goes to bed. He seems to have grown quite a bit recently and everyone has been saying how big he's getting.

We are finally potty trained! Gigi and Grandpa Shertzer took him to Chuck E Cheese today as a reward. He still won't go poo in the potty because he says "it will hurt", but he will ask for a diaper and then go right back to his "big boy underwear" when he's done. Lots better than having to change every diaper for 3 kids all day!

Ben loves to play outside and does a great job of staying in the safe part of the yard (and telling me when Jack is *not* staying in the safe part).

His terrible 2's and 3's seem to be gone for the most part. I guess he gave his share to Jack who started his very early.

Both boys have been watching the "Your Baby Can Read" DVDs and are doing well with them. It's hard to tell what Ben knows because he rarely will do things on demand. I know one day he's just going to start reading something and then I'll wonder how long he has been able to do it. Recently I've been working with him on "he" and "him" for boys and "she" and "her" for girls. He often calls Emma "him". I have also been pretty diligent in correcting his verbs and verb tenses. The way he talks now is cute, but I figure it's better to get it right early while he's still learning.

Ben loves sleeping in his top bunk! We do have to keep the boys out of the bedroom during the day though unfortunately. They are too prone to go right up to the top bunk and start jumping around.

He is still one of the most grateful children I've ever seen and will effuse "Oh THANK you!" whenever you give him something (and sometimes just when you ask him to do something). We also get to hear "I love you" or "I love you so much!" several times a day or more. =-)

Some cute/funny things Ben has said lately:

"I exploded!"

"I fell down and hit my head and I cried and I hurt my heart too and my heart is crying."

Me: "Ben? Why is Jack crying? What happened?"
Ben: "Jack fall down in the grass and I didn't do *anything* to Jack."


Watching Daddy and Uncle Dury re-roof the front porch
(Uncle Dury's recently acquired RV in the background)


In his PJs, outside enjoying the nice spring weather.