Six Months Old

One of my wonderful "internet" friends has a tradition to celebrate her children's half birthdays. I always want to do this, but never remember! Until now, that is. And what better way to start out then with Oliver's very first half-birthday.

I tried my hand at making a "half" birthday cake, but my cake layering skills (or perhaps my ability to grease the pan beforehand?) are severely lacking and the cake looked horrible. Luckily for Oliver (who obviously wouldn't have had any anyway), my rice cereal making skills are apparently superb.  This was his first go at solid foods and he thought it was the best.

And lucky for the rest of us, the crazy looking cake tasted wonderful :)

Oliver can roll over both ways very well. He is still working on the whole sitting up thing.  He loves playing with his feet and kicking them. In fact, if one of the kids is too close to him while he's kicking, they will tell Oliver to stop kicking them! He weighed in at 14 lbs. 14 oz. and is 25.25 inches tall (long?).

A Little Somethin' Somethin'

When Skyler learned this song ("The Family is of God") at church, the music leader made a video using pictures of the kids' families and this song as the background music. It was awesome and made me want to do one of my own. So, here's the new and improved* version.

*new and improved in that it includes a picture of each one of my twin nieces as opposed to two pictures of the same girl.

Roar!

Jonah and Jordan went on a daddy-Jonah trip to the zoo on Friday. Here's a picture of Jonah roaring like a lion.

Turkey Cookies

I was going to make cookies and Skyler wanted them to be turkey cookies. I have no turkey cookie cutter (and actually had no intention on making sugar cookies, so my lack of said cookie cutter really didn't matter), so Skyler decided to take matters into his own hands.

He cut out some "feathers" to stick in the warm cookies.  It worked far better than I thought it would and looked really cool actually.

Happy Now, Don't Cry

When Oliver gets upset, sometimes Jonah will run circles around him, flap his arms up and down and chant "happy now, don't cry" over and over again.  It doesn't normally work, but it always makes me smile, and sometimes that's just as good.

Five Months Old

...just pretend I posted this three weeks ago!

Here's a peek at what Oliver was like at five months old

He just moved into his crib in his own room.

He is starting to be interested in toys.

He loves to be held and most days does not like to nap. I'm sure you can imagine how fun that is.

He has started to laugh out loud and makes the cutest shrieking/squealing noises.

He likes to pull his pacifier out of his mouth and try to put it back in. He never really seems frustrated by the fact that he can't get it back in.

He thinks his big brothers are the coolest.

Feeding Time

It's feeding time for the dinosaurs (and the walrus).

Don't let their plastic appearance fool you, they're a hungry bunch. They managed to eat an entire box of graham cracker sticks on Thursday.

Ladies and Gentlemen - The Beatles!

Last Halloween, I had just recently found out that I was pregnant and I knew that if it was another boy I should use that to my advantage when it came to Halloween costumes. So, with that in mind, let me introduce:

John

Paul

George

and Ringo

And, hey look, there's Yoko too

The inspiration:

The Day Before Halloween...

....otherwise known as my birthday.

Skyler made me a birthday hat and chose a Cherry CreamSlush for me at Sonic.

Jordan got me some cupcakes from Cupcake Fetish and took me out to dinner.

Jonah watched The Nightmare Before Christmas with me (one of my favorites) and told me "happy birthday" about a dozen times.

And Oliver wouldn't take a nap.

Oh well, three out of four isn't bad.

Snow in October

I can't say that I've ever experienced snow in October (which isn't saying a whole lot considering I haven't really experienced a lot of snow, period, even when you factor in two Pennsylvania winters), but that's just what we had yesterday.

It started out with a very light fall, so light I couldn't catch any flakes on camera.

It soon progressed to a decent amount, but I never imagined it would stick.

But it certainly did.  Here is a picture I took while waiting for Skyler at school.

And here's the backyard.

The kids were excited to play in it, but after a few seconds they weren't so sure anymore. Historically, Skyler does not like snow and Jonah was picking up on that. For awhile they were just quickly running out into the grass and then back to the shelter of the porch. Eventually they decided that this snow thing isn't so bad.

Well, until your pants fall down.

But if you can make snow angels (grass angels?), it makes everything better.

It's All About the Legos

This will be a Christmas of Legos, if for none other reason than the fact that they play together so nicely when Legos are involved!

We had just received a new Lego catalog in the mail, so in these first two pictures they were trying to re-create some of the things on the pages. It's important to note, however, that the sharing does not extend to the catalog. There have been many arguments over that.

How'd You Do?

I thought it was funny that, in general, the more often you see my children in person, the less accurate you were.

Nap Time Rules

Before I put Jonah down for a nap, I ask him what the nap time rules are so he spouts off to me - "be quiet, close your eyes, no crying (not sure where that comes from), go to sleep, stay in bed". Sometimes one gets repeated a few times and it took a lot of reminding from me that 'stay in bed' was a part of the rules (he'd leave it out - maybe because that's the one he had the hardest time following?). These are also the night time rules and sometimes he refers to them as the 'bunk bed rules'. Does he follow them? Not so much, but he certainly is getting better at it.

Name That Kid

Alright, have at it, who's who?

In the Last Month

Skyler has been in Kindergarten for a little over a month now and I've been having trouble finding the time to sit down at the computer and write about the things we've been doing (it's just the combination of things that I'm having trouble with, I have no trouble just sitting down at the computer). So here's a little update interspersed with pictures that having nothing to do with what I'm writing about.

Skyler loves school and he's doing well. Though we do have some difficulties getting him up and at 'em in the mornings (wherever did he get that trait from?), he has never complained that he doesn't want to go to school. Homework is an entirely different story, but thus far he's always managed to get it done. His teacher says he's always well behaved and follows the rules. Serious.

All summer, we'd been telling Jonah that when Skyler went to school, he'd go to potty training school. So, while Skyler was off enjoying his first day of school, Jonah was picking out his first pair of underwear. It was slightly crazy to adjust to a new school schedule and routine and help Jonah with potty training, but I'm glad I just did then and got it over with. It's so nice to have that in the past and to only be buying diapers for one kid again!

I like being able to spend time with just the two little guys while Skyler's at school. A few weeks ago, we went to the zoo. Jonah is so much fun at the zoo - he actually likes looking at the animals! While Skyler seems to like running around and telling me where to go, Jonah actually wanted to stop and see what the animals were doing.

Skyler started soccer. It's lots of fun because his team is made of kids from church. Actually there's two teams of kids and they practice together. I love practices because there's friends for Jonah to play with and friends for me to talk to! Skyler never wants to go to games or practice, but he loves it once he gets there. Jonah started a tumbling class. It's the same one that Skyler did in the spring. Jonah participated a lot more when he wasn't actually in the class. He takes some time to warm up, but he ends up having lots of fun and is always excited to go.

4 Months Old

It's been four months since Oliver joined our family and he seems to fit right in! He's our hybrid child, he looks a lot like Jonah, but acts a lot like Skyler. He wants to be held all the time and when he's not being held he likes to be talked to and played with. Sometimes he'll throw a nap in the mix as well.

He's working on the whole rolling over thing, and while he's done it before, he seems to prefer to go halfway and stop on his side. He is starting to be more interested in toys, mainly in bringing them towards his mouth. He appears to like the crinkly noise that the plastic bag that holds his diapers makes. But, there's this warning about it not being a toy so we try and keep it away from him.

He is starting to like his pacifier again - I don't know if that's good or not. Sometimes it seems to really calm him down, but in a year or so I may be kicking myself for not just taking it away for good!

At his four month check-up, he weighed in at 13 lbs. 9 oz and was 24.75" long.

Big School Event

Skyler's elementary school is brand new this year, so a grand opening celebration was held last week*. First each grade level sang a song. There were so many people there so we weren't close to the action at all, but it wasn't hard to spot Skyler as he walked out with his class.

When we picked up Skyler, we snapped a picture of him with his teacher, and one of him next to his self-portrait.

The school is named after a local author who there signing books. We bought an extremely over-priced book so we could get it signed because I thought it would be cool for Skyler to have such a momento of his elementary school. 

*Make that three weeks ago, I started this post two weeks ago, but didn't finish it!

Labor Day

We spent Labor Day up in the mountains with some friends, first at a national park with a few ruins to explore and then some more hiking further up the mountain.