Halloween Bonanza

We had a very eventful Halloween. Based on all the pictures I am sharing below, you can see how much fun we had. We started the festivities when Connor got to wear his pirate costume to gymnastics class. They did gymnastics tricks for treats. Then, that following Friday, we attended the church fall/Halloween festival. Then that weekend, we went to the ArBOOretum Event at the Houston Arboretum. Both kids dressed as pirates. And all of these activities were before actual Halloween. Ha!.

Then, Connor got to wear his pirate costume to school Wednesday and then we all got to trick or treat that night. On actual Halloween, Avery wore a lamb costume since we call her our Little Lamb. Now enjoy pics of all of our spooky adventures.

Connor dressed as a pirate before gymnastics class.

Stretching at class with one of his classmates Tristan and his coach Aaron in the Harlem Globetrotters costume.

Doing gymnastics tricks for treats. They got candy.

Fellow gymnasts in costume.

Avery sporting her Halloween outfit, complete with orange shirt, green pants, a black tutu, a Halloween bow, and a "My First Halloween" bib.

That following Friday, we all attended Connor's school, Fall/Halloween festival.

Avery getting her face painted for the first time ever.

Avery showing off her pumpkin and Daddy holding his little pumpkin.

Connor rockin' his Halloween shirt and playing carnival type games for prizes.

Connor made this really "cool" mask.

Heading to the ArBOOretum, Avery took a power nap. Even pirates get sleepy you know. I had bought a lamb costume for Avery since I call her my little lamb, but then I realized how cute it would be to match the kids, since I rarely get that chance. I ended up pulling together a costume pretty easily actually. Little did I know I was already dressing Avery like a pirate. Just kidding.

The Arboretum had a bunch of activities for the kids to do that revolved around nature as we walked through the trails. Of course they got candy when they completed an activity. It is Halloween afterall. Here, Connor got to act like a spider and crawl through a tunnel with his food (which was an inflatable bug). It was cute. His favorite activity though, was one where he got a spray bottle and had to act like a skunk spraying things that scared him.

Avery is awake and ready to play pirate with her brother.

My adorable pirates. Arrgh.

Connor looking dashing as he's playing at the Arboretum.

Some cute shots of the youngest pirate.

Yo Ho, Yo, Ho, the Pirates life for me.

This Halloween thing is fun.

Connor also had a pony ride and we got to ride a train. As you can see from the sky, it was a gorgeous day too and actually pretty cool, so it was perfect for a Halloween festival.

I believe this was the day before Halloween, when we had a picnic at the park and Avery and Connor swung together. I never got a good smiley picture, but Avery actually laughed a couple of times. It was so cute. Here I just captured her staring at her brother. She finds him fascinating.

Silly Connor.

This is fun and my brother is hilarious.

Sibling swinging.

The closest thing I got to a smile with my slow phone camera.

Connor begged me to make these cupcakes that were featured on the cover of Family Circle Magazine. I ended up giving most of them to his classmates and teachers as Halloween gifts. We didn't need 24 cupcakes in the house. They turned out pretty good and were spooky and tasty.

Another photo shoot of Avery in a Halloween outfit. I might have an addiction. Someone stop me.

Here she is about to lunge forward. That is her new thing. She almost gets into crawling stance but then her arms collapse down. Once she builds up that strength...watch out. We'll have a mobile baby on our hands.

A good pic of her three teeth on the bottom.

Ahhh, do I frighten you?

Not so spooky, just handsome.

Connor dressed to be a pirate at school on actual Halloween. Here he is "petting" Avery. Very sweet.

Up close and personal. He's a sweet big brother.

She can't take her eyes off of him, and it's not just because he's in costume. She is seriously so fascinated by her big brother.

Yes, she has two Halloween outfits.

On Halloween night, Avery as a lamb, Connor as a pirate, and Jeff as a ghost. I wore a cowboy hat, but wasn't really dressed up.

Our little lamb and our fierce pirate.

My baby lamb. Since she was dressed up like a stuffed animal, it was harder than normal for me to keep from snuggling her. Can you blame me?

I'm a lamb.

Photo right before we set out to go trick or treating

Our Halloween crew.

Trick or Treating with our neighbors and their children.

Avery is now a ghost?

Checking out the loot. He honestly hasn't eaten much of it. He's probably had two pieces since Halloween. I think he forgot about it. Hey, I'm not complaining.

Avery can't have candy this year, but she was looking on thinking, "Next year, I'm going to rake it in."

Avery turns 6 Months Old!

Little Miss Avery turned 6 months old on October 10th. She continues to be growing well and is still the sweetest little girl I know. 

At her 6 month appointment, she was 17 pounds 15 ounces, which placed her in the 75th percentile. Of course this came after a scary bout of Salmonella poisoning, where she lost over a pound from 7 days straight of diarrhea, so she is probably back into the higher percentiles now. We'll see at 9 months. She was also 27 inches long, which put her in the 90th percentile. Her head was 17 inches, which is the 50th percentile. Overall, she's growing right on track and is still a big girl. She is wearing 9 month clothes mostly, but wears some 12 month items too. 

Avery has really started to ramp up her baby food eating. She has already tried carrots, peas, green beans, sweet potato, yellow squash, zucchini, pumpkin, avocado, bananas, apple, pear, plum, peaches, rice cereal and oatmeal cereal. I have been making her baby food. I wasn't sure if I'd have time to do this with her, but I really find that it's worth the time it takes to make the food, because it's cheaper, I can give her more variety than you can find at the grocery store, it can be organic, and it's actually easier to store. I can store 24 servings of food in the freezer, versus 24 jars of baby food. 

She is also still nursing about 7 times a day. She eats plenty let's just say. Ha! I guess that's why she's a big girl. What can I say, she's a hungry hippo. 

Her sleeping has not improved very much. She still sometimes wakes up twice in the night and her napping is totally inconsistent. Sometimes she wakes up from a nap after 40 minutes even though she hadn't slept in over 3 hours. Let's just say, she's a work in progress when it comes to sleeping. 

Her temperament is still super sweet despite her lack of sleep. She is very smiley and happy. Sometimes she is also just really mellow too. She'll just sit happily chewing on toys or looking around in my arms. 

Speaking of chewing, while she does not spit up hardly at all, she does drool a ton. She chews on everything in site. The chewing is leading to something though. She just got her third tooth and her fourth is almost through. Instead of her top two, which I was expecting, she got the two beside her bottom two, so she'll have four teeth on the bottom soon. 

Now that she can sit up better, you've got to watch out, because she will reach as far as she can or lunge for anything nearby. I don't think she's about to crawl, but I think she wishes she could get moving and chase her brother's toys.  She can move a little though, because she can roll front to back a few times and there have been a few times where she's rolled right off her play gym or a blanket I've laid out. It's kind of funny. 

Now enjoy a few pictures of our little girl who is already half a year old. Man time is flying!     

Look at me sitting up like a big girl.

Whoops, I'm not quite stable sitting up just yet.

Back on my buns and happy as a clam.

Hello!

I also like laying on my back and chewing on my toes.

Happy baby!

Yes, I can smile even bigger.

Looking strong on her tummy. Will we be crawling in a few months? I think so.

Baby blue eyes with a silly pony tail.

Avery checking out Maizey. Of course Maizey is a very sweet dog to both Connor and Avery.

Here is a funny picture of all of us playing with super hero masks. As you can tell, Connor made the one I'm wearing. It is supposed to be the Hulk, but I'm not sure the Hulk has feathers and pom poms on his face. Hee hee.

Is Avery the cutest Captain America or what?

http://youtu.be/giJqv9nqCRo
avery laughing  

Miscellaneous Fall Fun and Connor update

Here are just some pictures of us enjoying the fall. We have actually been home the past two weekends, so we're enjoying the time to get things done and just hang out as a family.

Since there is not much to add about these pictures, I figure now might be a good time to give an update on Connor. I'll be updating Avery next week as she turns 6 months old (weep, weep).

Connor has definitely settled into some of the bad habits of three year olds, but when he has his moments, he can still be just the sweetest little boy ever. They say that getting from 3 to 4 is harder than 2 to 3 (so much for the terrible two's) so I think it's to be expected.

As for the bad habits I mentioned, Connor has certainly ramped up the whining and defiance. I hear "no" and then Connor crosses his arms across his chest probably 30 times a day. It gets so frustrating, especially when I'm not asking him to do anything too hard. Some days it seems like he fights me on everything. We work on it though and time outs and counting 1, 2, 3 seem to work, but it's still hard.

He also tends to get frustrated sooo easily. For example, if he can't fit his train tracks together the first time he says, "I can't do it" and then throws the train track piece. Of course throwing toys is not a good thing at all, so we are working on that. Sometimes he says he can't do something before he has even tried, which drives me nuts. If something is hard, that's OK, but to not even try and already say, "I can't" is irritating.

Apparently he does it at school too, so that's not good. We've had a few bad reports from school, which is honestly pretty surprising, but he seems to be getting better at being a good friend (i.e. not hitting and sharing) and not throwing things, which were the teacher's biggest complaints. Of course they said these behaviors are normal, but I still felt bad that my son was being challenging. Again though, the last two times I've picked him up at school, they gave me a good report.

As per usual, his eating habits also make Jeff and I crazy. He is not interested in trying new foods or vegetables, but we decided recently we are going to take a stand and do our best to just serve him a modified version of what we're eating so it's not the same "kid" food every night.

We also are making him try at least one bite of everything and he can't leave the table until he does. All the experts say to just offer good food and if they eat it great, if not that's fine, but our child is way too stubborn for that. I guarantee if I put a vegetable on his plate every night and didn't tell him to eat it, he wouldn't just eat it on his own. He is not curious about new foods. He stubbornly refuses to try them unless he's forced too, so we're trying this for now. He has actually done pretty well so far.

We have also stopped giving him candy as special treats for doing good deads. It was getting a little out of hand. We want him to behave well to make us happy and to be a good boy, not because he might get a candy treat. He is actually starting to get the fact that there are no more special treats and we told him that too much candy makes him sick and I think that made sense to him the most.

He is still struggling with telling me he has to go pee pee, but he'll tell me when he has to go poop. I still have to ask him to go pee or he may have an accident, which is frustrating, but I know every kid gets it eventually. I wish that time was sooner than later.

He goes to bed around 8:30, but can stay up later now that he's older. He still naps almost every day from about 2:30 to 5 or 5:30.

Although he can be a bit challenging at times, he can also be totally awesome as well. His language skills are really blossoming and sometimes just listening to him tell a story can be the most adorable thing in the world. He is starting to actually talk on the phone to people and his back and forths are so cute. He'll also tell me about his day a bit more. He also does this really cute thing where he whispers sometimes when he's excited. One of my favorite current phrases is, "no thanks." He also makes exclamations like, "No way" or "This is tasty." It's just funny.

Also, he seems to be a really good listener when it comes to his teachers and coaches. Whenever I go to his gymnastics class or his other play class he always participates really well and does what his teachers ask him to do, which is not the case with some of the other kids in his class. I am always very proud. He sits and waits his turn and is kind to the other kids in his class. He also goes right into class without a fuss. I see some kids clinging to their Moms or crying because their Mom left them, but Connor doesn't seem to have that separation anxiety. He waltzes right in, ready to have fun. He'll wave to me as I watch, but he continues to participate and have fun.

It is also so cute to watch him play with other kids. Almost every time after I pick him up from his school on Monday's, Wednesday's and Friday's, we play on the school park for about an hour. Seeing him talk to his "buddies" and ask them to play with him and to hear him laugh so hard when he's playing is so sweet. He still has this adorable and hearty laugh that you just can't help but smile when you hear it. Considering the fact that he is very shy with strangers, he is a very social kid with his peers. He prefers to play with other kids than by himself, which isn't always the case with other 3 year olds I interact with.  

He is still really into sports and now that it is College Football season, he is really into football again. He loves all sports though and continues to play golf, tennis, basketball, baseball, soccer, and he started making up a hockey game too. It's funny, because we just recently started going to this place called Great Play where they introduce the basic concepts of sports and just athletic play for kids and one day they had a little unit with golf and all of the instructors came up to me and said he was really good at golf. They sort of seemed surprised at how good he was. I just smiled, but it wasn't news to me. He's good at all sports. Just wait and see instructors...ha!

He also likes trucks and trains, but lately he has been really into pretend play. He likes to dress up as a pirate or a cowboy and make up pretend scenarios. He also likes to hide and have us find him. He likes super heroes too.

His favorite TV shows at the moment are pretty much anything on Nick Jr., but he seems to really like Bubble Guppies, Team Umi Zoomi, Peppa Pig, and Fresh Beat Band. He also likes Curious George on PBS. He seems to be way into all of the Toy Story Movies too. We try not to watch too much TV, but that's really not that difficult, since he'd much prefer to play than watch a show. We often start the day with a show, but that's probably for my benefit too, so I can get dressed and sort of ease into the day. It's not easy keeping up with that toddler energy.

Overall Connor is still a sweet and silly boy who makes me laugh and smile every day. Some days I smile more than others, but for the most part he really is a good boy and I am so thankful for him. Now enjoy some random pictures from the past couple of weeks.

One day I was feeding Avery in the living room and I heard Connor playing in the kitchen. Sometimes he "cooks" for me. When I came back into the kitchen I found that he had created this scene all by himself. He said his froggies were having dinner. He gave them each a bowl and a cupcake pan. Plus I just love that the frogs are sort of propped up in their chairs so they can see. He is clearly proud of his work too. Look at that grin.

One of his froggies enjoying his Connor made dinner.

Connor has started to actually draw faces when he is scribbling. I think he learned it at school or saw other friends doing it, because he just started doing this one day. As far as I know, this is his first "real" drawing that looked like something, so of course I had to photograph the moment.

Look it's a face. How cool. Sure it's a little basic, but I love it and think it's fine art.

Siblings playing dress up. Connor is still a fabulous big brother. I have absolutely no complaints. He rocks. Yeehaw!

Showing off his love for hiding. What a good hiding place he found.

Daddy and the kiddos after they were hiding in bed.

Our sweet babies.

After a nap on Daddy's chest, Avery woke up and snuggled with Daddy for a bit.

Avery is getting better and better at sitting up. She can sit for a while all by herself.

Playing with Daddy.

Big smile for Mommy.

My sweet girl.

Cute face and a nice shot of her bottom teeth. Oh and her hair has a sort of red hue like Connor had when he was her age.

Playing baseball in a pack of bubbles from the bubble machine.

Avery was mesmerized by the bubble machine.

These things are cool.

Daddy dressing up Avery as a pirate. "Arrgh!"

Amarillo Visit

The weekend of September 14th, we visited Gigi, Pagger Don and Aunt Stacey in Amarillo. Connor had been there recently when he stayed by himself in late August, so he was very excited to return and show Mommy and Daddy all the fun things there are to do there.

We had amazing weather and since it was still so hot in Sugar Land, spending all of our time outside was so great. We played all sorts of ball games, took a Christmas picture, and made it to the Potter County Fair.

Since Aunt Stacey will be back on her cruise ship on actual Thanksgiving, we managed to squeeze in a Thanksgiving style meal on Saturday. What a treat that was. Gigi had all the tasty fixin's finished off with pumpkin pie of course. Avery didn't get to taste any, but I think she was eyeing her favorites for next year when she's old enough to eat Thanksgiving food. Of course Connor's favorite was the pumpkin pie and the homemade whipped cream.

We'll get to see Aunt Stacey one more time before she heads back to her cruise ship when they visit us in a few weeks for football fun, but this weekend was still a special time to see Connor and Avery bond with their Aunt who they don't get to see very often. We also got to meet Aunt Stacey's boyfriend, Tony, who drove up from Colorado to meet us and enjoy Thanksgiving on Saturday.

We left Sunday morning and couldn't believe how fast the time flew by. What a fun trip.

Gigi and Avery getting their snuggle on.

Connor loves dressing up as a cowboy and immediately he put on his cowboy boots, hat, and started roping a horse.

Nice form Connor. Pagger Don showed him how.

Now that he's got him roped, it's time for a ride.

Clearly from the look on the group in the background, you can tell that Connor is the dinner entertainment.

Connor also loves to dress up as a pirate. Here he is showing off the homemade sword Aunt Stacey made and his muscles of course. "Arrgh"

Connor bonding with his Aunt Stacey.

It was chilly in the mornings, so Avery rocked her puma, velour sweatsuit. She looked so funny in it.

Can you see her hands in her pockets. Ha! "Yo, I'm just chillin'"

Now he's got a homemade sword, bandana, and an eye patch. What a scary pirate.

Connor "helping" Aunt Stacey bake a cake. It was yummy and only had a few egg shells in it. Just kidding.

Gameday gals. Gig 'Em.

Thanksgiving came early this year. Yum!

Connor chowing down on his pumpkin pie.

Avery contemplating what food she will eat next year.

Connor won this huge "Rasta Banana" at the Potter County Fair. Avery liked batting at his dreads. Hee hee.