Happy Halloween!

 We had a good day!  It was a school day, but we carved pumpkins as soon as Sam got home.  2 pumpkins in 30 minutes, I was pleased!  Sam wasn't a huge help in the carving, but he is good at washing pumpkin seeds.  Daddy came home early from work and we were all able to head out together.  Next year I think I might have to stay behind to hand out candy, as we did miss a bunch while we were out.

Sam was able to really anticipate it this year, which was fun, and was not shy about saying trick or treat at each door (just about knocking!).  It was both shocking and disturbing the number of people who offered candy to my baby tonight. 

8 Months

So, what's Annabelle like at 8 months?

She has turned into a rock star crawler.  If we leave her alone in a room (oops, it happens) she just comes along to catch up.  But sometimes she gets lost and ends up in the bathroom.  Doesn't bother her, she has a great time exploring all of the places that we have never taken her in this house (like the tile entryway).  She is also a much stronger stander now and loves to spend time at the activity table.  She has not figured out how to move her feet while standing, so cruising is still a ways off.  She is trying to pull up, but just can't get it.

Her brother finds her far more interesting now that she is mobile.  He is engaging her more in playtime, and has even insisted that I couldn't take her to do something yet because he was going to play with her for a minute.  He also finds her to be more annoying.  "Annabelle, no!  That's MY toy!"  Sometimes they laugh together in the back seat of the car, and that is pretty awesome.

She is developing a few of her consonant sounds: baba, aaba, mmmm and today when Chris walked in from work, "Dada."  Its seemed intentional, but we'll see if it sticks.  She gets loud whenever there is a loud appliance on like the vacuum or blow dryer.

She gets very very clingy when she is tired.  On school and church days she was to wait until after drop-off or until we get to church for her morning nap and sometimes that is just too long!  She wants nothing more to be held, which is hard when I'm trying to get us all out the door.  Enter the Ergo Carrier.  She hated it before, but we are becoming fast friends.

She is loving her solid foods.  Miss independent will only eat off of the spoon if she is really hungry or looooves what is being served (pears and peaches, anyone?).  She eats about 3 ounces of puree and some finger foods at lunch and more at dinner.  Tonight he ate an entire scrambled egg, 3 ounces of pureed fruit, a graham cracker, half a slice of cheese and some puffs.  She loves scrambled eggs, cottage cheese with fruit, any pureed fruit, acorn squash and feeding herself.  She really needs to develop a better pincer grasp to make self-feeding more efficient!  But she loves cut up strawberries, cantaloupe, steamed green beans, crackers.  I'm trying to figure out the right approach with the veggies for finger foods - it would help if she had some teeth!

Nursing is her happy place.  She has taken so well to the solids that she isn't super hungry for her milk in the afternoon/evening, but she still likes to hang out with Mommy.  She gets most of our milk at the first two feedings of the day (we're still doing 5, the last three very short), and for this reason I'm not giving her breakfast in the high chair yet.  Sometimes she like to just hang out in my arms for several minutes after we're done.  Could it be - do I have a child who will cuddle?

Her warm little room is her other happy place.  We broke out the space heater last week when the temps dipped here for the first time and her room is cozy and toasty.  She is napping longer and sleeping later in the morning.  So for now she is napping 1.5 hours in the morning (she'd go longer, but that just doesn't fit into our family schedule) and 2-3 hours in the afternoon (again, depending on the day's schedule).  She sleeps about 11-11.5 hours at night, and never wakes up - or at least never wakes us up.  She only takes a paci in the crib now, but thankfully that's the only place she seems to need it.

When I took her in for her flu shot booster she weighed 14 lbs 7 oz.  She wears size 2 diapers, but she isn't swimming in size threes.  She can wear 6, 9 or 12 month clothes depending on brand and style.  She wore shoes for the first time the other day, and they are a size 2 but have plenty of room. 

She is becoming more and more her own person and it is fun to watch.

And finally, here's her list!
Likes:
-Fruit
-Sam
-Getting around on her own
-Being warm and cozy
-Self-Feeding

Dislikes:
-Not having something to chew on
-Having toys stolen from her

Zoo Boo!

Sam and I had such fun last year (and I guess Annabelle was there, too, but I cannot account for the level of fun she achieved that day) that we just had to go back to Zoo Boo again this year.  And once again, his little buddy Leo came with us!

Sam is executing a bit of a "Tour de Costume" this year.  Last weekend, for a Halloween-themed birthday party, he was a Steelers Football Player, but today he chose to go as Bob the Builder.  Its nice to have a well-stocked dress-up collection this time of year.  Bob was a good choice because we could use the tool box as his treat bag.  Fun!

Annabelle is a bumble bee this year.  So stinkin cute.

We hit up all the special Zoo Boo activities: tattoos, games, trick-or-treat stations, pumpkin painting, and a monkey coloring station.  Sam chose to hang his monkey on the paper tree with the others, Leo chose to bring his home. 

Of course we also rode the carousel and ate lunch on the giraffe viewing platform.

I made a very real attempt at getting a cute fall picture of my two squirmers together, but this is the best I could do.  Annabelle was pulling at the dirt and trying to crawl away while Sam was trying to select the perfect pumpkin to paint.  Why can't these children focus!
 

Once the kids had shed their costumes (I can't blame them, it got up to 85 degrees while we were there), Annabelle had her turn enjoying the elephant.

Leo's grandma and I realized on the way out that we really only saw 3 animals today - the elephants, bears and giraffes.  Oops!  There's always next time!

2:28 of Fame

So we were accosted by a news crew at the park about 10 days ago.  Before I even said yes, I had a microphone being fed through my shirt and they were telling me how to hold my baby.  Bad day to not do my hair or make-up, but it was the park!  And one of our first (and only) fall days so far, so the kids are wearing the first "warm" clothes I could find.  I swear I said some intelligent things, but this is what they chose to show.  You can also spot Sam's friend Harper Grace, she's the curly-blond following him around.

http://www.khou.com/home/Are-parents-potty-training-too-soon---174811121.html

They teased it a few times on the air, and those were mostly of me and the kids, too.

Sam's Afternoon

We put him down for his nap around 1:30, he was asleep by 1:50.  He slept and slept and slept.  We watched our last episode of Downton Abbey, which was a 2 hour episode.  Now I have to wait until January before the new season is available.  I started talking about Matthew and Mary and dinner tonight and Chris said, "Oh man, that took me a minute.  I thought you were talking about real people."  To which I responded, "They are real to me!"

But that is not the point of the story.  Sam napped for a long time.  At 4:15 we started discussing our wake-the-boy-plan.  Its not fun to wake him from a nap, but sometimes it must be done to preserver bedtime.  At 4:35 Chris went in, but the boy could not be roused.  He slept more.

Chris left the door open and we went about our day.  He slept until about 4:50.  Chris went in with serious kid gloves because Sam can be really mean when he wakes and you just want to avoid waking that beast if possible.  It started well, but went down hill fast.  As soon as he left his room Sam realized that his bag of Goldfish Crackers had been moved while he slept.  This was unacceptable and the tipping point for an avalanche of emotion.  A few things were moved, the bag of crackers replaced in an attempt to appease the sleepy beast.  But apparently the whole ordeal was just too much for him because the next thing he said was, "I want to take another nap!"

He walked into his room, climbed into bed, told Chris to shut the door, and was quiet.  Its now 5pm.

2 minutes later he calls for Chris.  We thought he'd tell us he was ready to try again, ready to be awake.  No.  He told Chris to flatten out the bag of Goldfish.  Y'all, this bag was on the dresser in the hallway.  Sam was in his room, door closed.  He had no line of sight.  That means that he was lying in his bed, thinking about how the bag had been left, and it was bothering him enough that he could not rest.  Holy Cow.  Chris adjusted to bag to Sam's liking and shut the door once again.

He called for Chris again at 5:20.  This time he was up for good.

We enjoyed a lovely evening, he and I took a bike ride and we had leftover spaghetti for dinner.  At 7:04 he said, "I'm ready to go to bed."  Wow.

Well, by the time we all got jammied, and played on the big bed, and tickled and laughed and took turns catching Annabelle who insisted on crawling off the bed and thought it was just histerical when you tried to catch her, and threw around a sticky eyeball, it was 7:45 when we achieved lights out. 

So yeah.  Remember how I said he was up at 4:40 yesterday morning?  I guess it finally hit him.  That and the little cold he's carrying around today.  Poor guy was just DONE.  I had to write it all down, because I think hearing a non-feverish 3.5-year-old boy ask to take a second nap of the day is a once-in-a-lifetime kinda thing.

**Bonus Story: He got a sticky eyeball as a party favor from his buddy's 4th birthday.  Yes, his buddies are turning 4.  I don't want to talk about it.  But this eyeball is fun and sticks to things and crawls down walls, etc.  After dinner Sam said he was going potty and then we heard him playing by himself for about 10 minutes.  Eternity for him.  We noticed.  He was quiet when he finally came back, but assured us everything was Ok.  Later we played around with him, asking where his eyeball was because we noticed it stuck to the kitchen ceiling.  We laughed.  He laughed and said, "Oh I was scared and went in my room and didn't tell you guys."

So there you have it.  The first time he purposefully hid his actions from us to avoid punishment.  Now in this case it was a non-issue, the eyeball on the ceiling was funny (not sure why he thought we'd be mad about it).  But I took the opportunity to have a little chat about always telling mommy the truth, and if its an accident than I won't be mad and he won't be in trouble.  Now we both have to follow through...

Pumpkin "Farm"

Today we made the trek to the Pumpkin Farm.  And by Pumpkin Farm, I mean Christmas Tree Farm that trucks in boxes of pumpkins to let all the Texans pretend with during the month of October.  And by Christmas Tree Farm, I mean a place that grows some type of Cypress tree that I pretty sure could never hold an ornament.  We wore shorts, my daughter a sundress, because the high today was 89.  They sold snowballs, not hot cider.  Sigh, I miss the Midwest.  But these are the types of experiences that I want for my children, so we made do with what we had.  Fortunately they don't know much better.  Sam has been to a better one, but he was 18 months old and doesn't remember it. 

He enjoyed climbing the pumpkin piles, although I don't think he was really supposed to!  His true love of the day was his little red wagon.  He spotted them the moment we walked in, and it was his precious the entire time.  It took a good bit of negotiating and convincing to get him to leave it by the stroller while we rode on the hayride though the fields of conically-trimmed Cypress bushes Christmas Trees.  He picked out several pumpkins and piled them in, took them out, rearranged them, fit another in.  He pulled the wagon around, parked it, pulled it some more. 

He loved the giant inflatable slide.  This is improvement, as usually I have to climb up these types of things with him.  He went down about 10 times.  He still had no interest in the bounce house.  He only likes those when its just one or two kids (and when does that ever happen?).

Lady A, of course, was along for the ride.  She likes to be outside, so I'm sure she enjoyed herself in spite of the interrupted nap.  She looked awfully cute, and tried to eat the hay.

We came home with three small pumpkins.  That was negotiated down from 5 - 3 because he is 3.  They already have faces drawn on them.  They have been placed on the front step, brought back in, arranged in this room and that.  They are resting in Sam's room for the night.  So much for my fall decor!  He loves them, though, and that's what matters.

So, why so much negotiating with my preschooler you ask?  Because today he woke up at 4:40.  And in spite of Daddy's best efforts, he was up for the day.  So by the time we arrived at 10 am he had already been up for over 5 hours and had a soccer practice.  In an effort to preserve a happy family outing from one meltdown after another, we were choosing our battles.    On the way home, after he woke from a 25 minute power nap, he told us that he was worn out because "I've had a pretty busy day!" 

A Day Of Athletic Achievement

When they came to visit us over Easter, my brother and sister-in-law did a few 3 mile run/walks through my neighborhood.  This morning they finished the Chicago Marathon. 

Matt said it was an awesome experience that he never wants to do again.  Of course, that was at 3pm on race day when his body was feeling less than ideal, so I plan to ask again in about a month.  They had a cheering squad that found them 5 or 6 times and waved giant crayon-shaped piggy banks (crayon for the teacher, bank for the banker, red for Miami University) to get their attention.  Way to go Matt and Kate, quite an accomplishment!

Not to be outdone by her aunt and uncle, Annabelle chose race day to display her own athletic prowess.  Today she started to crawl!  She has been army crawling for a few days, and given her brother's preferance for that style for almost 3 months, I thought she'd stick with it for awhile.  But today she put it all together.  Slow and awkward, for sure, but a crawl non the less.  Way to go Annabelle, quite and accomplishment!

Annabelle Crawling!

*Please excuse Sam's attitude in the video.  We're working on it, I promise.