My Favorite Things

Halloween 2011

I can not let this post go without pointing out that I made Little Man's "Flash" costume and I am really proud of the result.  The boys loved trick or treating and had a lot of fun going house to house until Peanut decided he was done.  They each had one piece of candy and went to bed.  It was a great afternoon.

A day full of laughter and lots of noise

Mee-Mom and Mommom came for a visit to celebrate Sweet Pea turning 1 and Mee-Mom turning a bit more than 1.  It was chaotic, noisy, hysterical and a perfectly blended day of many generations.  My Mommom came loaded with gifts to spoil the kids and she managed to both spoil them and spoil me.  There is nothing better than watching Peanut snuggle into the same arms that I can remember climbing into to receive similar spoiling.  Mee-Mom was treated to special hugs from Sweet Pea which turned her into a big pile of Mee-Mom mush.  Little Man was in heaven with his "bestest friend" Mee-Mom and Peanut practiced talking all day long because he just had so much to say to his Mee-Mom.  It was one of those days that you just want to memorize every detail and try and remember each hysterical or heart-felt moment as much as possible.

Sweet Pea loved playing with Simba and by playing, I mean trying to attack her.

 

She also sported her new outfit from Mommom.  Look at that tush!

 

We attempted to get a good picture of 4 generations of women in my family...we got a lot of pictures....but not a lot of good ones.  It was fun trying though.

We finally gave up and let Little Man join in the picture which proved even more entertaining....

But these two are cute and I think we are all actually looking at the camera and smiling/grimacing but at least not screaming

 

 

How to prepare a pumpkin...by Peanut and Little Man

First, cut a hole in the top of the pumpkin and remove the guts of the pumpkin.  Be sure sure to the top back in the hole over and over again because you can.

Then continue to remove the seeds and pulp with a spoon.  Look in the pumpkin very carefully to make sure you got it all.  Take small bites of the pumpkin because you can.

Sing while you do all of this...

If that gets old, just turn the pumpkin over and shake until something comes out...

When your brother isn't looking go and work on his pumpkin...but beware that your brother didn't go to retrieve a trowel to make the process go faster...because you can.

Sweet Pea turns 1

Sweet Pea is such a big girl now.  It is hard to remember her as the tiny 7 pounds 14 ounces and 21 1/2 inches long she was when we brought her home just a year ago.  Now she weighs in at 25 pound 14 ounces and is 31 1/2 inches long.  Yup, in only one year she has gained 18 pounds and grown 10 inches.  We don't keep them little in this house for very long at all!  She is off the chart for both height and weight so we yet again, do not have a growth percentile for one of our children.  But as big as she is, she is still smaller than her brothers at this age.  She weighs a pound less than Little Man and 3 pounds less than Peanut when they were 1.  So to us, she is our sweet petite girl.

Sweet Pea's Yelling Face

Sweet Pea is walking all the time now and this evening she got up to standing on her own without holding onto a toy/wall/brother for support.  She is still walking like she is about to fight someone but can increase and decrease speeds at her leisure now and walks less like a drunk.  Her 4 words (this, uh oh, mama and ta da) are adorable but her main way of communication is screaming.  She yells.  A lot.  She yells to get someone's attention, she yells if she wants more food, she yells if she wants a toy that she can't reach and the worst part is that the boys in this house jump to do her bidding so she is encouraged to keep yelling.







The day she turned 1 she cut her 7th tooth and 2 days later has cut her 8th tooth.  I am hoping that means better sleep for a while.  Prior to the tooth cutting sleeplessness - Sweet Pea is/was taking two 1 1/2 hour naps and sleeping from 7:30-7:00.  She eats everything.  She eats the same breakfast, lunch and dinner that we serve the rest of the family and eats as much as her brothers do.  She prefers to feed herself which of course lands her in the bathtub just about every night.  Sister loves chocolate and has a sweet tooth.  She proved that on her birthday when she was the first of all three kids to truly enjoy her cupcake.

She loved unwrapping her gifts but didn't get much of a chance to really play with them because the boys immediately confiscated them as their own.  Which means that Little Man was walking around practicing ballet in his tiara and princess want and Peanut carried his new purse everywhere.

My current favorite things about Sweet Pea are:
1.  Her hugs - Sister can cuddle better than a cashmere teddy bear.  She loves to give hugs and they are long and warm and the best thing ever.
2.  Her dance moves are the best. She has an arm swing, head bob move that I just love and you only have to hum a few bars of any song to see them. She is my dancer for sure.
3.  Her crooked grin. She loves to feel her bottom teeth on her gums but to do this she slides her jaw and then smiles making such an adorable face I have to kiss her.

Sweet Pea has completed our family and has filled our lives with laughter and love every day of her 1 year.  I can't wait to see what is in store for the next year!

It's Raining Toys

It's Raining Toys
We can not keep the playroom clean these days because toys seem to drop from the sky on Sweet Pea's head.  It is her new party trick.  She walks/crawls/shimmies/dances over to a bin of toys and then dumps it on her head.  The best is when she picks up a bin of toys that is clearly too heavy for her because when she lifts it above her head to dump in out it propels her backwards so that after the toys rain down on her head she falls back and lands with her head in the bin.

Would You Like Fries With That?
Little Man and Peanut like to play "drive thru" and my favorite part is that they think that in addition to paying me money for the milkshake or fries they are obligated to give me kisses with each purchase.  They roll by with their money and kisses requesting everything from french fries to soup.  I also enjoy a game I can play with them that doesn't involve bad guys or monsters.

No Guns Allowed
We don't allow toy guns or swords in the house.  The sword rule is just for all of our protection because a 4 year old and a 2 year old wielding anything resembling a sword could result in lots of trouble and broken things.  The gun rule is now up for debate because as all little boys can, Little Man can turn his bristle blocks, shoe or a perfectly shaped stick into a gun.  So I am not sure that it is worth the effort.  Boys will be boys and I am thinking it might be more important to teach him not to point his gun (pretend or otherwise) at people and that we only shoot the pretend bad guys.  This decision is still up for debate so for now the bristle block gun will have to do.

Money Tree

The other day Little Man was playing outside with a neighborhood friend for a lot of the afternoon.  They were off by themselves for most of the time playing their games and telling secrets.  When I asked him later what they were playing he said that they were planting seeds and waiting for their trees to grow.  I asked him if they were pretend trees and he said that they were real seeds that they planted so they had to be real trees too.  On the way home from school the next day he was very excited and couldn't wait until his friend came home from school (she is 7) so that they could go check on their trees.  Then he said "Mama, you are going to be so so happy with me when I find my trees. Do you know why, Mama?" Then he says in a stage whisper "BECAUSE WE PLANTED MONEY TREES and I am going to give you all of my money, well some of it".  I love his imagination and his innocence.  I love that he is still convinced that the money trees are just missing and that one day he will find his money tree.  When I asked him what he will do with the money on the money tree he said he would share some with me but only 5 dollars and he would use the seeds to plant more money trees.  Yeah, he gets that part from me.  Some people are looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow...but Little Man and I are just looking for the missing money trees.

Put 'em up, Put 'em up

Sweet Pea walks like she is going to fight someone at any moment.  Her tiny hands are clenched in ineffectual fists, her arms are bent at the elbows and held in front of her ready to take a swing at her imaginary foe.  It is my most favorite thing to watch right now.  She does this super wide leg wobble and barely bends her knees as she wobbles through the house. She now says 4 words - uh oh, this, mama and ta-da!  There are stories behind a few of those - but I will save them for a different post.

Little Man is constantly fighting bad guys.  I mean, when he isn't piloting airplanes or rocketships he is sword fighting bad guys or dragons.  We don't allow toy guns or swords in the house but honestly I don't know why I bother.  Little Man has built himself a gun out of bristle blocks and tonight he and Peanut were sword fighting with plastic coat hangers.  I wanted to stop them but they were playing so brilliantly together I hesitated to break up the play.  But then they accidentally on purpose smacked each other a little too hard and I took the hanger/swords away.

The other night at dinner I asked Peanut if he could count for me and sure enough he counted to 8!  My adorable Peanut who couldn't say a single word a year ago counted to 8 perfectly!  And today at school I heard him count to 5 for his teacher and name all of his colors.  His teacher told me that he tends to use his body to move kids out of his way but he was a gem in class today and laughed and played all day.  I never thought I would have a kid love school as much as Little Man, but Peanut loves it just as equally.  There is a sensitive side to Peanut that I am just seeing emerge.  He doesn't like for people to see him cry.  It is such a bigger kid emotion and I am so used to seeing him as my baby boy that it is both endearing and surprising to me.

Pumpkins Galore

It is that wonderful time of year when the temperatures drop a bit, the humidity goes away and the leaves start to change.  This means lots of fall traditions, pumpkins, festivals, moonbounces, pumpkin bread, and good old fashioned family time. 

It is hard to believe that at this same time last year I was still pregnant with Sweet Pea and couldn't fathom walking around in the fall "heat" while pregnant.  Having missed so much last year due to my enormity, I am really relishing all of the fun this year.  A church near our house had a little fall festival where the kids all got free pumpkins and were able to bounce in a moonbounce all by themselves for an hour.

We also went to Butler's Orchard Fall Festival.  We went there in the spring for the Spring Festival and really enjoyed it so we thought we would go again.  The kids had a blast.

Peanut loved the slides...

And Sweet Pea loved Little Man's kisses.....

Peanut didn't really love being the "fly" the Little Man's "spider" as apparently he was being eaten.  But he got over it quickly because he got to climb on this!  The kids climbed up this and then inside there was a slide and they got to slide down.  Peanut wouldn't leave the cab.  I had to go extract him and then we moved on and he escaped out the side of the next thing we were playing on to make his way back on the harvester.