Fun With Grandma

I don't love how far away we are from the grandparents, but I do love that my dad does come to Dallas on business occasionally.  And about 1/2 the time that he does, we're able to talk him into letting my mom come too!  It's worked out especially well for her to be here this week since Chopper has been out of town -- I haven't had to single mom it!  Wahoo!

Funny how things change though -- we've spent a lot of time just doing our thing: preschool, playing, shopping.  As the kids get older there will be less special attractions and more just taking care of business.  And in between times Grandma has played, chased, and subjected herself to some interesting commentary . . . 

Two days ago Grandma was about to get in the shower and Abby walked into the bathroom when she was, well, exposed.  It took a little coaxing on my part to get her out (I was nursing so I couldn't just grab her), but she finally came on her own and closed the door and then said, "that was gross."  I kid you not!  I laughed SOOOOO hard and thankfully, Grandma laughed too when we told her. 

Megan is also becoming more body conscious.  On Tuesday afternoon we had a playdate with the kids in her preschool class and so we talked about her friends.  She says to me pretty matter-of-factly, "Jack is a fat boy."  I don't think she's being rude -- I realized yesterday that we talk about how fat William is ALL THE TIME.  And he is a chunker!  It's just a fact and we love him for it -- it's all loving and kisses for those chubby legs and cheeks.  But maybe we need to be more careful so that she just doesn't start saying that all the time.

Of course we took Grandma to the Arboretum -- it's my favorite place in Dallas!!  And it was a great day for it.

 I'm working on being in the picture more.  Am I doing a good job?

 

 I think this is my FAVORITE picture of the whole week.  Look at that Chubster!!!  I just put him in 9 month clothing today -- 9 months!  And he's not even 4 months old.  Everyone who asks about him gets this surprised look on their face when I tell them how old he is.

LOVE this picture of Megan.  It's definitely going on my magnet board.  I have too many pictures for my magnet board . . . 

 I love these little pumpkins strung on the trees.  I wish I had a tree to decorate that way!

So little bench + little girls + trying to get good pictures = very funny faces:

 

 

 

 Oh yeah, and the girls got hair cuts.  Abby's in particular looks really cute because it's not a wild fuzzball anymore.  

Anyway, great week so far and we'll see what tomorrow holds!

Happy (Early) Halloween!!

This was going to be the girls' Halloween costumes this year.  But I tell you what, I don't know how people get their families to all do the Halloween theme.  After I made their colonial dresses and they posed for a few pictures, all bets were off!

So we went to plan B for our ward Halloween party.  Ok for Megan it really was plan B although we had gotten up to plan D (Twilight Sparkle pony, tiger, Tinker Bell, colonial girl) before going BACK to plan D.  So for Halloween this year the lineup was:

William was Superbaby!  Super powers include sleeping through the night (8 p.m. to 6 a.m. and I love it!) and defeating his enemies with the power of spitup.  Apparently, I am his enemy most of the time!  His kryptonite?  Ceiling fans.  He's completely mesmerized and powerless in when there's one spinning.

 

Abby was Abigail Adams!  This is mostly due to the fact that you ask her who she is and she says (all the time) "I'm just Abby".  So we made it easy on her this year.

 

Megan refused to pose for pictures (of course) but she did go back to being a tiger.  And I look at her know and realize just what an "interesting" tiger she was.  Every part of her costume is a different color and stripe . . . I guess that's what you get when mom can sew dresses but nothing else!  Incidentally, the initial plan B was to make her Hobbes and William Calvin.  But when she went to plan C (Tinker Bell), I went with Superbaby.  Yesterday she was pretty mad that she was a tiger after all and William was NOT Calvin.  Sigh.  The sad life of a 4-year old.

Chopper and I were gold medal Olympians in the sport of . . . rhythmic gymnastics!  Specifically ribbon dancing.  I came up with the idea but . . . 

Chopper came up with the routine.  I kid you not.  And we performed it at our party (without music).

Same Old Same Old!

Cute Baby with that look on his face:  You are my parents?!?!?!?!

Ok.

Oh the hair, the hair!!

Yes, more Arboretum.  And yes again, more hugging pumpkins.  The tiger costume is new though.  I'll get a better picture at the Halloween party tomorrow (hopefully).

This is a friend of ours, not some random boy that the girls picked up.

And lots of fun faces.

 

 Hey, we're a good looking family!!

And Megan's new favorite activity at the Arboretum -- throwing straw all over herself and anyone within 5 feet of her.

The preparation: 

The launch:

The retaliation:

The fun!

Happy 19th of October!!

It's Coming . . .

I have NOT been in a Halloween mood.  We're all decorated, our ward party is this weekend (yikes!) and I just haven't been motivated on costumes.  Abby either changes her mind every 2 minutes or she says "I just want to be Abigail" and I haven't had the heart to create a costume for her.  I even bought -- BOUGHT -- a TinkerBell costume for Megan!  I don't love it, but she does and that's what counts.  And she'll be cute in it anyway.

But that all changed over the weekend.  On Friday night, even though I had a cold (which I still have but it wasn't too bad that night) we went over to my friend's house for dinner and a movie since both our husbands were out of town (and she's awesome and didn't care that I was disgusting and perhaps carrying the plague).  I was lamenting my costume woes and she says to me -- well, why don't you make Abby Abigail Adams?  Then she'll be Abby!  

Hello!  Brilliant!

And it just so happens I have a pattern for a colonial costume and some material  that needs to be used.  Because I collect things like that . . . 

So now I'm getting excited.

Then her 4 year old kept going on and on about how "super cute" William was.  He even prayed that they would get to keep that cute cute baby forever and ever (sorry Grant, he's mine ALL MINE bwahahaha --evil laugh) and another idea popped in my head.

So here's the lineup (with pictures on Friday because of the early ward party -- aren't YOU lucky!):

Megan -- TinkerBell

Abby -- Abigail Adams

William -- SuperCute

Kristy and Chopper -- still working on that one . . . although I wouldn't mind being a colonial girl myself. 

Some updates

Well, whatever issues we had with our computer, they've been fixed.  So here's a few things:

The growth chart.  It's actually really cool in person and Chopper's planning on mounting it at the end of the hallway where we can see it all the time but take it down and take it with us when we move.

Megan wanted to play TinkerBell with an old costume and let me put her hair in a bun.  She looks like the real thing!  Now she wants to be TinkerBell for Halloween.  Sadly, I do not feel like making costumes this year and am really tempted to just go buy her one.  They just always seem so flimsy to me and I know that both girls will wear that thing out.  At least if I make it, it will hold up a little longer.  What to do, what to do . . . 

Just some fun pictures.  I'm been slacking on the photos.

Generally speaking Megan still enjoys preschool.  But.  Her teachers have been telling me that her anger issues are coming out (surprise surprise) and I've started to see an interesting thing in her work that she brings home.  She started off the year doing her handwriting and you could see where she drifted off and decided not to do it.  Now she's just not doing it at all. 

But she did bring home this paper with her name written partially at the top!!  Chopper and I made a big deal out of this to help keep her motivated and it IS a big deal that she's starting to write her name.  She is making some great progress.

Month 3 and Chunky as Can Be

I've decided on a new tactic for keeping up with my baby books -- because as consistent as I am at blogging, I am terrible at baby books!  So I'm using this to my advantage.  The plan?  To record stuff as it happens in one post and then publish it on William's month birthday.  Then copy and paste into his baby book.  Sorry kiddo but I'm hoping it works!

No laughter yet but some definite tickles spots that earn us a wide open mouth (of joy) and lots of squirming.  Under the arms when you change his clothes is the best one.  Neck kisses are a close second.

William has found his thumb (ah, that's my boy!) but doesn't seem to know what to do with it!  He sticks it in his mouth but doesn't suck or anything.  I'm not sure what this means . . . 

He LOVES his play gym.  He has apparently made very good friends with the bees that hang from the center.

Tummy time is STILL a bust!  He loves to be held upright and so is developing good neck and head control that way but you put him face down on the floor and he just lays there.  Lazy boy.

Right now he's taking naps about every 2 hours and gets fussy before sleeping but generally speaking he sleeps so well through the night!!  He's up usually once and lately it's been around 4 or 5 am and then back to sleep for a few more hours.  I love it!!
He's talkative, smiley, and a super sweet boy.  I haven't weighed him yet on our scale.  I probably should just to get a general idea -- but he's a chunky one for sure!

So these 2 pictures look totally different to me!  Which is funny because the skeleton one happened maybe a week ago and then the smiley one was yesterday.  I guess it just goes to show how much a smile can change your face!

Reflections

So conference went pretty well this time around!  The bags went over great, the girls were excited, Chopper and I listened to quite a bit actually.  I always feel after conference like I've been given a shot of adrenaline at getting things right.  And then the next day comes.  And all my struggles are back.

I'm thinking now with William it's dairy AND gluten.  He's got eczema on his arms and his bowels have slowed down majorly.  But the spit up and the congestion is definitely dairy!  Ugh.  I just want him to be happy and healthy.  And I want to eat!!!

Megan and Abby are both giving me fits about different things but I don't think I want to share it right now because I realize that if I do, it paints a really negative picture of my family.  I think sometimes that it's important to acknowledge and talk about the struggles but do I want to preserve them in writing?  Or do I want to look back in 10 or 20 years and just remember the positive things?  Maybe if I recognized more positive things on a daily basis the struggles wouldn't seem so bad.  

Ok ok.  So Chopper had Columbus Day off and we spent the day getting the house a little more cleaned up.  Things have just been piling up lately and it's nice to see surfaces again.  Chopper also did the first measurement for the girls on the growth chart.  From here on out, we'll only measure them on the chart on their birthdays --but you have to start somewhere!  He made an awesome chart that will go with us whenever we move.  I love it -- but I love trees.  I did point out though that our boy(s) may not be so excited to get measured on a tree with pink flowers!

So I just tried to post the pictures and the web crashed twice.  So I'll post this and then investigate . . .

Too much information?

But I HAVE to post this.  Megan will not thank me later but I think the approximately 4 people who read this blog won't mind.  Maybe Grandpa.  Sorry, don't keep reading.

So a few weeks back when I was making lunch, Megan asked me for a tortilla.  Since I had the corn tortillas out I gave her one of those and she had a fit asking me for one that had nipples on it.  I don't know how long it took me to realize she wanted a flour tortilla and when I gave it to her she pointed at the brown spots and said "see, a tortilla with nipples!"  I was a little horrified about this and we had a long conversation about how that is NOT what those brown spots are called.  They're just brown spots.

Well it wasn't too long ago that Megan saw a girl in a store or somewhere and told me that she had nipples all over her face.  And when I looked at the girl, I realized what was going on.  The girl had FRECKLES all over her face and Megan thought the BROWN SPOTS ON A TORTILLA were freckles too.  Except she got her words mixed up.

So we had another conversation just to straighten her out a little bit and moved on with life.

I'm sorry but I still laugh thinking about it.