Happy Halloween 2014

For Halloween this year, we kept it very simple.  I had the kids choose costumes from out of our dress up bin.  Since the boys could still wear several costumes in there, they had a good selection to choose from.  And Bree could wear either a pumpkin or lion costume that both boys had worn in the past.

The weather was actually very mild for the end of October in Colorado.  We took the kids to the ward Trunk or Treat on the 28th and spent a good 40 minutes making the rounds of the cars.  After about our third car, Bree began to realize that there was candy in her pumpkin and so she tried to sit down in the parking lot and start eating.  She would start to throw a fit everytime I tried to get her to move and keep on going.  So, I ended up taking her pumpkin and having someone else put a piece of candy of it (we were near another car) and she watched me like a hawk.  She was afraid I was going to take her candy away, but instead she saw that she was getting more candy.  She was sold!  She picked herself up off of the ground and continued trick or treating.  Sheeew!

Our lion, Spider Man, and a Knight ("in shining armor")

 Finn's preschool class had a Halloween party on the 30th.  I left Bree with a friend and went in to volunteer.  I helped the kids at the Monster Shape Face station and got to see a bit of their Halloween costume parade.  Kai's party was on the 31st in the afternoon.  The PTO paid to bring in a magician for the whole school and I hear everyone had a real good time.

Finn's Halloween parade

He wore his costume all day.  Here is our Spider Man with his bike helmet on (because he had been riding) saving a toy from the evil bush with a sledge hammer.  He was way too funny!

The night of Halloween it had gotten colder.  Kai declared that it was too cold to go out and that he didn't need to get "too much" candy.  (Unfortunately, after I had already left to take Finn out, Kai changed his mind and got upset that he was left behind.)  Finn really wanted to go out trick or treating, so I bundled him up and headed over to a friend's house from the ward (and her neighbor that we know from school).  We had a fun time trick or treating in their neighborhood and Finn got a whole LOT of candy.  We were out for about an hour (or a little more) and really didn't get that cold.  The whole time I kept thinking that I should have just made Kai come because I knew he would have enjoyed it.  Oh well, next time.

The kids now have more candy than the know what to do with and we are officially welcoming the holiday season into our home.  Happy Halloween!

18 Months of Bree

I can't believe our "Babe" is getting so old!  She is NOT getting big, but she sure is learning a lot and developing into quite a personality.  At her 18 month check-up she was 18 pounds and 30.5 inches tall.  I struggle with clothes for her because length wise she would be in the 18 month zone but weight wise she is only in the 12 month zone.  So, she wears a lot of leggings as they seem to fit her in the waist and length.  She is still very much a mommy's girl but she has graduated to not immediately crying when someone walks in our house.  Baby steps!  She loves to climb and slide.  In fact, I think she's my first kid whose favorite thing to do at the playground isn't swing.  She would much prefer to slide.  And she wants to do anything that the boys are doing.  Not only did she decide to try bounce houses at Finn's birthday party, but yesterday she even insisted that she be allowed to ice skate with them.  I wish I could have taken a picture but I was so focused on making sure she didn't fall.  She did great, though, and was so cute in her tiny ice skates!

Over the last few months, Bree's vocabulary has grown immensely.  She now has at least 50 different words that she says.  Some of those include:  mommy, daddy, papa, Kai ("Dai"), Finn ("Sinn"), brother, cheese, done, again (sounds very much like done), milk ("dadum"), blankie ("diddy"), Me, slide, bus, shoes, socks, poptart (yep, she does have a word for that!), dinner, show (for a TV show), touch (a game that she created that she loves to play), eye, bath, wash, snacks, treat, oww!, bandaid, in, back, diaper, wipe, dirty, bike, hat, bye, juice, watch, ring, beads (what we call her necklaces), and tie.  I will admit that she doesn't speak very clearly, but we can understand her and know what she is saying even if no one else does.  It's so fun to hear her little voice.  She also has a few phrases, such as "There it is!" and even "My turn".  Those are very hard to decipher, but once again, in context, we have heard her say those several times.

I'm been very grateful that she seems to sleep through the night most nights.  She tops out at 10 1/2 hours very consistently, which I find funny.  Only when she has been cutting teeth has she gone consecutive days without sleeping through.  She now has 11 teeth (4 on the top middle, 4 on the bottom middle, and 3 of her 1 year molars), so only 9 more to go!  Wahoo!  She has also remained very independent and prefers to fall asleep by herself.  At bedtime I will snuggle with her for five minutes or less and sing primary songs before saying goodnight, tucking her in, and walking out.  She calls for me until I'm all the way out the door, but unless she isn't ready for bed, she rarely throws a fit.  She has also found a way to procrastinate bedtime.  She will say "Song" over and over will me cuddle requesting more and more songs.  She never wants to be done with the songs.  We do a similar routine at naptime, and she takes one nap a day that last from two to three hours.

My sleeping beauty

Bree loves to take a bath and play with her brothers.  She loves to hold on tight to one of my fingers as we walk around the house.  She is my "big" helper with the dishes and insists on putting the utensils away for me.  Her favorite game is "touch" and involves standing with your back to the front door while touching it and then running and squealing as you make a circle around the love seat and then head back to "touch" the door again.  She has to play with someone else and she can play for a long, long time.  She also loves to color, and is easy to entertain with a crayon and piece of paper.

I'm grateful that she has been my easiest baby by far.  I don't know if it's because she's a girl, or because she's my third, or it it's that I know a bit more of what I'm doing, but either way, she's by far my easiest baby and that has been a blessing.  We are so happy to have our "Bree babe".

Random October Shenanigans

This little stinker has figured out how to take off her clothes and her diaper.  She thinks it's hilarious!

A mid-day treatment.  Poor kid continues to fight Staph (MSSA) in his sinuses when he is not on oral antibiotics.  We've increased him to two sinus rinses a day (not his favorite thing at all!) and I'm hoping after this current round of antibiotics we will get a few weeks or month free of thick green mucus.  Crossing my fingers!

This has been the best "fall" I have ever seen in Colorado.  The weather has been beautiful and the kids and I have enjoyed lots of outdoor time.  Finn loves to ride his bike to the bus stop and if we have time we stop at the garden next door.  The leaves were just beautiful this day and so I told Finn to stand by the tree for a picture.

My favorite October picture of Bree.  We were playing outside in the beautiful weather waiting for the bus to come.

Finn was running and jumping to his bum and wanted pictures of it.  Here he is mid-flight.

And here he is posing for me after he landed.

Finn and Bree playing in the yard.  (Yep, Bree has her finger in her belly button.  Remind you of anyone Kristi?)

5!!

Finn turned 5 on Friday October 17th.  Since school was out that day, we had a party that morning at House of Bounce.  We invited friends from both church and school, and everyone seemed to have a good time.  One of Finn's friends needed a ride to the party so he came over early that morning and played with the boys while I finished getting everything ready to go.  (It actually turned out to be really helpful.)  We arrived early for the party to get the party room set up and to start heating up the hot dogs in the crockpot.  Once the kids arrived they had a good hour or so to play before we headed up for hot dogs, chips, and pickles.  And then there was cake, ice cream, and presents.  I was grateful for the friends who stayed to help with the party.  The last time we visited House of Bounce Bree wanted nothing to do with it, but she has since changed her mind.  She was begging to go down the slide nearly the whole party.  And since she can't climb up by herself, she was roping me and Reid into doing it with her.  It was a tiring day!

Despite my repeated headbanging with cake making, I was convinced I could make a cake.  Finn chose a simple cake, or so it seemed.  He wanted a "Pinata Cake" (a cake with candy on the inside, like a pinata).  And when we went to the store he picked out a tie dye cake mix.  It sounded simple enough.  I even bought the Wilton pans to make the cake just to make sure it wasn't too hard.  Well, four cakes later, I had yet to successfully get a cake out of the pan without it crumbling to bits.  So, at 4:30 the day before Finn's birthday we ran to Wal-Mart to see what we could do.  There was a nice young lady behind the bakery counter who happened to share a birthday with Finn.  He wasn't super excited about the cakes that were out on display (but we would have made one work), so she went into the freezer to see what else was ready.  There were some great choices back there, but Finn lit up with he saw the SpiderMan cake.  So, SpiderMan it was.  Thank goodness for Wal-Mart!

My pretty bowls for the tie dye cake.

It turned out really great, as long as it stayed in the pan.  Grrrrr......

When we got home from the party, Finn's friend stayed for a bit longer and so the boys opened all of the toys and played with them while I unpacked the car and Bree napped.  Finn got a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuff, which was funny because he has never really watched that or shown much interest in that.  But he was really happy with his gifts.

For dinner that night we had Arby's and then opened presents from the family.  Finn got a Jake and the Neverland Pirates game from his grandma and then a skateboard from us.  He was so excited!

Finn got a nice scratch on his face where his chin connected with the velcro wall at House of Bounce

Playing the Jake game the next morning

It was a great birthday.  And Finn had such a fun time.  We are so blessed to have him in our family.  He sure brings a spirit full of energy and excitement to our house.  He challenges and pushes us all to keep up with him.  I feel so blessed to be his mom.  He teaches me every single day.  Happy Birthday Finn!