Happy Halloween!

I dressed the kiddos in their Halloween PJs last night so we'd all wake up in the holiday mood this morning. They were so cute, I had to take pictures and share them. I mean, really, what kind of mom would I be if I didn't share this cuteness?


Baby Boo was in a drumming mood and didn't much want to be bothered by pictures.



Finny was just being silly and cute.




They did a little drumming together. (And how adorable is it that Greta's jammies say BOO on the tushie and feet? LOL)

Finny's good night kiss to his little sister.

Happy Halloween to all! I'll post pictures of them in their costumes soon!

Saving These for Blackmail Someday...

A friend sent Greta a homemade tutu yesterday. She was already ready for bed when I saw the box by the door, but Fin immediately saw me with a package and assumed it was for him.

I opened it and explained that the gift was for Greta, but he begged me to let him wear it so I relented. I didn't want to crush that creative spirit, after all.

Once I tied it on him, he immediately started spinning around and singing. I can only imagine how pretty the shiny fabric looked from his vantage point as he spun under the lights.




I finally got him to stand still for a moment and he looks like we forced him into the thing! LOL



When GaGa offered him her hand to spin again, he happily grabbed it and began twirling. This time, he kept saying, "This skirt makes me want to dance!"

This is such a fun age! Think he'll like me pulling these pictures out when he's 14? ;)

Eleven months old!

I know time seems to go more quickly as you get older, but I had no idea how much more quickly time was going to fly with two kiddos.

Our Greta Boo is already eleven months old and I cannot begin to tell you where the last almost-year has gone. In fact, at this time last year I was laying in bed all day every day, hooked up to a machine several hours a day to monitor the contractions I was having, talking to the nurse twice a day, taking drugs every four hours to try to stop the contractions, and having a nurse come to our house every weekend to give me hormone shots in an effort to keep this baby girl IN.

Obviously, all that worked well and we had a healthy, full term, beautiful baby girl - who is starting to look more and more like a toddler every single day.

Apparently I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today.

So, here's our gorgeous, not-so-little girl!



Can you tell she has a thing about sticking her tongue out?



You can only expect a super-mobile baby to stay in one place for so long. She let me take a few pictures, then made a break for it, though she was happy to stand in the chair and dance for Daddy for a few minutes.



There's that tongue again.



Someone should really tell this girl's parents how unsafe it is to let her stand in a chair like that with a toy in her mouth. What kind of parents does she have???

Dancing for Daddy!

She's outta here, folks!

My Little Pumpkins at the Patch

It's that time of year again... Time to hit the pumpkin patch in 90+ degree weather. I hear this time of year is something called "fall" in other parts of the world, but it sure was hot here yesterday. The kiddos looked cute, anyway.


Greta Boo wasn't a huge fan of the hay, but she still smiled for us.

Finny is looking like such a big boy these days. I can't believe he's almost 3.

A little Daddy and Greta cuteness

Me and my babies!

Finally, a full family shot. The kids look a little dazed, but at least we're all looking in the general direction of the camera, so I'm calling it a success!

How Cute is This?

So, my friend Sarah over at Ohana Mama is doing another giveaway. This time it's for a custom-made CurlyQ Cuties monster doll. These things are so adorable and I want one for both of the kiddos!

I played around with the made-to-order screen and came up with this one for my little teething monster: Green Diva body with bright blue large googly eyes, tongue mouth, and red heart belly. Greta sticks her tongue out all the time these days and I thought she'd enjoy a cuddly doll that did the same.

For Fin, who has recently started talking about keeping each other safe from the scary monsters in the house, I'm hoping this guy would help him conquer those fears: Red Lu body with dark green large googly eyes, small toothy mouth, and purple star belly. That star would help keep him brave, I'm sure!

And yes, I did try to capture the picture of what each of these would look like, but it didn't work. Go play with the made-to-order screen yourself to see what these combos would look like or design your own favorite!

Success!!!

I certainly don't want to jinx anything, but I think Fin is completely potty trained!

He's been in big boy pants full time for at least a week and I think we've only had (maybe) 3 accidents. He's wearing big boy underwear all night, the bed stays bone dry and he goes potty as soon as he wakes up every single morning!

Dave and I were talking this morning and neither of us could remember when we last put a diaper on him, so I think he's finally done. Of course, he still asks what his "special treat" will be every time he uses the potty so we'll have to wean him off that, but he's going several times a day without being reminded and when we do ask him if he needs to go, he doesn't fight us at all!

And can I tell you how cute it is when he suddenly stops playing, pulls off his pants and runs naked to the bathroom by himself? LOL When I ask him if he needs help, he just yells, "NO!" and keeps on running. And he doesn't! He uses his step stool to climb right up on the regular potty to sit down, or just stands over his little potty and goes. But it is hilarious to see him trying to straddle the little potty, hold on to the wall and squat down a little to make sure he doesn't spray pee everywhere.

Anyway, I'm so proud of him and so glad it seems to have finally clicked! The other day in the car he suddenly said, "I'm a big boy now. I use the potty all the time and now I can go to school like Liam!"

Greta's latest accomplishments

I cannot believe how quickly this little girl is growing up. When I laid her in her crib last night, she squirmed and crawled a little in her sleep to get comfy and when she stretched out, I swear she had the long, lanky limbs of a toddler already. Sigh...

She's also had two fun milestones in the last couple of days!

She's been pulling up and cruising on furniture for a while now and will often do a single hand hold to stay upright, but whenever she let go completely - plop! - down she'd go on her tushie. But two days ago, she was standing in GaGa's kitchen holding her hands and she suddenly let go and just stood there! She stood for a really long time (okay, about 10 seconds, but that's long when she's never done it before) before she sat down and we haven't gotten her to do it again since then, but it's progress! This one will be walking before I know it, I'm sure.

And since I posted about her signing "birdie" she's started generalizing it and using it whenever she wants to get anyone's attention or point to anything. So it may not really just mean bird anymore, but she has found a word she loves to say! If you ask her if she wants more of anything while she's eating or playing, she'll look right at you and say "buh!".

Now I know this sounds nothing like "more", but she definitely knows what she wants when she says it and if you offer her something more and she doesn't say "buh" she will not pick it up or play with it at all.

Finally, she's been sort of waving for a week or so, but this morning over breakfast, she was practicing opening and closing her hand like a wave. As I left for work, I gave both kids kisses and hugs and as I reached the door, I turned and waved and she gave me a HUGE grin and waved back!

We played that game of waving and saying bye for a few minutes and finally HaHa picked her up and brought her outside to the driveway so she could wave as I left for work.

It was a sweet morning having both of my kiddos standing in the driveway waving as I left for the day.

Happy Birthday HaHa!

Today is my mother-in-law's 60th birthday, so Happy Birthday HaHa (Elaine)! I hope it's a great day for you!

This morning Dave and Fin sat down to make HaHa a birthday card. They pulled out some paper and crayons, sat down at Fin's art table and went to work. I was a few feet away putting away laundry and overheard the following conversation:

Dave: "Nice drawing. What is that? It looks like a heart."
Fin: "No, a butt."
D (laughing): "Okay. And what is this part here?"
F: "A butt face!"

I swear, I really, really, really don't think he's EVER heard the phrase "butt face" anywhere. I think he drew the butt and then tried to put a face on it. But the conversation continued...

D: "What's this part here that's coming out of the butt face?"
F (proudly): "A POOPY!"

Yeah, the potty training is going really well lately. LOL. And of course, poopy is a common topic of conversation around our house, so I'm not surprised it got drawn.

After that exchange, Dave asked if he could label the things in the drawing so HaHa would know what everything was. Fin said sure, so HaHa's birthday card had arrows pointing to a butt, a butt face and a poopy. And Greta did a little scribble for her, too.

I hope turing 60 is this special for all of us!

Quick favorite

I don't have a real story to tell today, I just keep forgetting to mention one of my favorite Fin-isms these days.

If you ask Fin if he's doing something or you talk about something he's doing to someone within his hearing and he wants to protest or deny those actions, he will often say:

"No, I amn't!"

which I think is one of the cutest things I've heard in my life. He's been saying "I amn't" instead of "I'm not" for a few months now, but it never gets old.

Signing and counting birdies

Greta is working on signing words to us. We're getting her in to a Baby Signs class next month, but we've been showing her the basics - eat, please, more, all done, nurse, kitty cat - for a few months now.

Every once in a while she'll sort of sign "more" to us, but for the most part, she seems to understand the signs more than she'll generate them to actually communicate with us. For example, if she's getting fussy and I sign "nurse" to her, she'll calm down because she knows what's coming.

But in the past week or so, she's developed her own sign! For birds, of all things.

I don't know why she chose "bird" to be her first real sign, but any time we're outside and she sees or hears birds, she does the same thing. It's not the "true" sign for bird, but because it's the same consistent sign and she only does it for birds, it counts. So, when she sees or hears birds, she looks around for them, waves her arm over her heard and goes "ffft" with her mouth.

It's very, very cute, I promise.

And with all the talk of birdies in our house lately, I was reminded of this awesome set of pictures of Fin. So I'm throwing in another Fin story from the mom-memory archives!

A while back (okay, it was February of this year, so Fin was 2yrs, 2 months old here) Fin and GaGa were having lunch at her house. They were talking about all the things they saw out the window and several birds were hanging out on the fence.




Fin was learning to count at that time, so they counted the three birds hanging out there.



Then, as birds will, they flew away.

Fin shouted out, "Come back birdies!" and one did! The look on his face was priceless.

I was so glad I was there with a camera to capture the pure joy and surprise on his face when that bird came back.

He is the sweetest boy ever.

So, last night was poker night for Dave. He tries to make the weekly game and I think it's good for him to have a regular social outlet, especially since he's a stay-at-home parent.

But poker night for Dave also means I get to try to get both kiddos down to bed by myself. Since both kids still need active parenting to fall asleep, this gets a little hard. I usually end up enjoying the experience, but I am always a bit terrified of it.

One of my worst nights as a mother was a poker night. But that night I was trying to be super mom and not rely on the TV to keep Fin occupied while I got Greta to sleep in her dark, quiet room. I have since come to my senses and realize that while I don't like letting Fin watch TV before bed, if it means bedtime for Greta is quick and painless and then I can focus on reading and telling stories to Fin, it makes poker night on my own so much easier.

Yesterday, Fin hadn't napped at all, and HaHa offered to make us dinner at her house. This seemed like a perfect plan for poker night. I wouldn't have a kitchen to clean up while keeping an eye on both kids between dinner and bedtime, and there was a very good chance that both kids would fall asleep in the car on our way home. Or at least one of them.

WRONG.

Both kids were wide awake when we got home from HaHa's. And I should mention that I started yesterday at 5:30am with Greta and had had only 5 hours of sleep the night before and was awakened by Dave and the kids 4 times in that five hours. So, needless to say, I was more than a little exhausted, especially after working all day, doing the commute, all the usual working parent stuff. And Dave, HaHa and I had gotten into a bit of a disagreement over dinner as well. Not the best of situations to start a poker night bedtime on my own.

Anyway, when I realized both kids were awake after dinner and the drive home, I just figured I had to make the best of it. As I unloaded the kids and got them into the house, I asked Fin if he wanted to watch Sid the Science Kid or Caillou while I got Greta down to sleep, then I would read him some books.

He took one look around the living room and said, "No. There are monsters in here. I want to stay with you. And there are monsters in that room, too. Turn on all the lights!"

I have no idea where he suddenly got a fear of monsters from (the only "monsters" he knows - to my knowledge, anyway - are the Sesame Street monsters: Cookie, Grover, Elmo, etc.), but no amount of lighting, reassurances, hugs, talking would convince him to stay in the living room by himself. So I told him he could come sit in Greta's room with me while I nursed her to sleep, but he had to be QUIET. I tried to set him up with some books on the floor, but every few minutes, he'd ask if Greta was asleep yet, come over to kiss her, try to climb in my lap, etc. And he needed the lights to be on completely, so I knew the chances of her dozing off in the brightness and noise were just about nil.

I gave up on that attempt and asked Fin if we could all go snuggle in bed together to see if Greta would fall asleep that way. He said, "Sure!" and happily ran into our bedroom.

I tried to lay down with Greta and get her nursing again, but Fin didn't want to lay down behind me to snuggle; he wanted to snuggle around Greta as well. This was terribly sweet as she was curled into me to nurse and he was curled around her and reaching over her to me, but again - he was kissing her and talking the whole time. And the lights were on. Naturally, she thought this meant it was playtime.

I eventually gave up all attempts at bedtime and just let them play. However, by this time I was also struggling to stay awake and was so tired I was trying not to cry. I lost that battle.

So there I was crying from sheer exhaustion and trying to just let the kids play for a bit while I figured out how in the world I was going to get them to sleep. I was proud of myself for not getting angry at them (as I have in the past when so very tired, I'm sad to admit) but also just completely wiped out.

Fin looked over at me and immediately says, "Why are you sad, Mommy? Don't be sad. There are no monsters here. I'll keep you safe. You don't need to be sad. It's okay. I'll protect you from the monsters."

This, of course, only made me cry harder.

He is SUCH an amazing, sweet, caring little guy.

So I explained that I was just tired, very, very tired - and not sad or scared. And I asked him how we could get Greta to sleep. He told me that he and Greta could play and I should just lay down and get some rest. LOL!

We ended up playing and crawling around on the floor for another hour or so. I tried nursing Greta several more times and at one point, she seemed to be dozing off enough that I took her into her room, reminded (begged) Fin to just not talk for a couple of minutes, he leaned against me and read some books while she dozed off and I was able to get her down for the night.

My sweet boy and I read some more books in bed, he asked for (and got) some juice, we read two more books and then he was finally comfortable with me turning out the lights. He pulled the blankets up to his chin and was asleep within two minutes.

I just laid there and watched him sleep, amazed at how loving, caring and wonderful this little guy really is. I am so blessed.

I'm a weiner!

Wait. No. Winner. I'm a winner.

My sweet friend Erin over at My Brute Squad just gave me a Kreative Blogger Award. Here it is:

I suppose the credit should mostly go to the kiddos for doing things worth writing down, but I'll bask in the reflected glory. I could use some basking right now.

But of course, winning comes with responsibilities (or something like that) and a condition of this award is that I spread the love. First, I have to write down 6 things that make me happy and then I will pass the award along to 6 other bloggers. So here we go!

These things make me happy:

1. My sweet, kind, cute, funny husband who will stay up until 4 in the morning with me when I just need to vent and cry about feeling overwhelmed.

2. The funniest, smartest, cutest, sweetest, most adorable, creative 2-yr old son I've ever seen. Fin is awesome.

3. The sweetest, cutest, most adorable, adventurous 10-month old daughter in the world. With double dimples to greet me when I get home!

4. Hearing the giggles of the kids playing together. They both love tickling, wrestling and "playing horse". Their giggles can fix anything in the world.

5. Having amazing friends who will blow sunshine my way with the slightest hint that I need some. You know who you are and I love you all.

6. Sleep. Sleep makes me happy.

And now - 6 more amazing mamas whose blogs are worth checking out! Some of these woman have more than one blog, but I'll just point you to my favorites.

Allie at Thank God for Naptime

Brandi at Keeping Up With the Keller Kids

Claire at Cooking Claire

Heather at Life With Izzy Boo

Jenn at The Lindstrom Family

Katherine at Katherine D Photography

Have a great Friday!

Finny's new pants

A while back, Dave took Fin to see his first movie in a theater. It was WALL-E.

Since then, Fin has been obsessed with WALL-E and EVE. And when he's really in to something, he will pretend 24/7 to be that character. His very vivid pretend worlds started with a few weeks of being Ernie from Sesame Street just after Greta was born. He made Dave be the Count. He went through a long stage of being Caillou (and of course, Greta had to be Caillou's little sister Rosie). And lately, he's EVE.

Dave and I have discussed at length why he might want to be EVE instead of WALL-E. My guess is that it's simply because EVE can fly and WALL-E, well, WALL-E picks up trash.

Anyway, while he's pretending to be EVE, he is also becoming very aware of and adamant about gender appropriate pronouns. So, when he's EVE you can't refer to him as "he" or "him" without immediately hearing, "Eva's not a boy! Eva's a girl!" or "Not 'him'! HER!"

And of course, because we have always been direct and honest with his questions about anatomy, Fin knows very well that he has a penis and that girls have vaginas.

Last week, I had gotten him to use the potty and was trying to get him excited about his "big boy pants". I thought I might be corrected and told they were "big girl pants" instead, but what he actually came up with was even better.

"Those aren't my big boy pants. Those are my ga-ina pants! I'm putting my ga-ina on!"

Yep, he knows he doesn't have a vagina. But girls do. And since EVE is a girl robot...

He now asks for his vagina pants most days. I think PopPop Doug was concerned when Fin asked him to help put his vagina on. LOL.

Amazing what these kids come up with, isn't it?

The evolution of (Fin's) language, part 2

Fin's been a pretty good talker for quite a while now. He gets shy around people he doesn't know well, but when he does talk, most people can understand the majority of his words.

But like any 2-yr old, there are a few words/sounds he mispronounces. He tends to have trouble with two consonants together. For example, space is "sace" and scan is "san" (which could also be sand or stand; context clues help).

He also has issues with L sounds, but he's actively trying to pronounce them and makes a very cute effort, talking about his "lllllllegs" instead of his "eggs" and asking you to "cllllose" the door instead of "cose" it.

But some of my favorite mispronounciations of his these days are random two-syllable words. He seems to prefer vowels together, so he just moves some letters around.

Pretend is "ta-end".
Potato is "ta-ato".
Vagina is "ga-ina".

And of course, there's a reason he talks about vaginas enough to have a standard mispronounciation. But that story warrants its own post. ;)

The evolution of (Fin's) language, part 1

Fin has been a pretty verbal kid from early on. His first word was Mama (yea!) at about 10 months old and he's been talking ever since. I quit counting his words at about 14 months because he had so many, especially when you added in all his BabySigns and animal sounds as well.

Our pediatrician had told us that he would expect him to be saying 2-3 word "sentences" by his 2nd birthday. At his 2-yr check up last year, we told the doc that Fin was already saying 8-9 word sentences pretty regularly. Dr. C said that put him at the verbal level of a 3.5 yr old.

Immediately after the appointment, I wondered if I was just imagining that he was putting that many words together because I want him (as all parents do, I think) to be amazing. But the next day we were riding in the car and the stared thoughtfully at the sippy cup in his hand and said, "milk and juice take turns in the purple cup."

Yep! That's nine words! And my 2 year old understood the concept of taking turns (he'd had both milk and juice from the same cup that morning) and knew the color purple! Yea!

So since that confirmation, I've just accepted that he really is a verbal kid and enjoyed the many amusing things that come out of his mouth.

I also noticed a really cute verbal evolution from him. When he was younger, he would point to pictures in books and grunt when he wanted to know what something was called. The grunt eventually morphed into "Dat" which then became "dat?" as he grasped the concept of asking questions.

He then started with "what dat?" and then "what's that?"

Finally, after hearing, "That's a ...." as a response so many, many times in his life, a few months ago Fin started asking, "What's that a?" and even "What is it a?"

LOL - he knows the article comes before the word so he supplies it for us! He's been doing this for about 4-5 months now and it's still cute every time he asks.

The whirlwind cometh

I realized today that we're about to hit our holiday/event whirlwind. From October until March, we have nonstop birthdays, holidays and events. There are a couple of breaks in there, but the longest is only about 2 weeks. And this doesn't even include the days (like my best friend Rachael's birthday or Dave's cousins' birthdays) that we try to send cards for.

Ready for what we have coming up?

Oct 20 - Haha's birthday
Nov 5 - PopPop Terry's birthday
Nov 18 - Our date-versary (9 years together!)
Nov 20 - Kiza's birthday
Nov 27 - Thanksgiving
Nov 28 - Greta's FIRST birthday!!!
Dec 10 - Our engage-iversary
Dec 14 - Grape's birthday
Dec 16 - Fin's third birthday!
Dec 24 - Christmas Eve
Dec 25 - Christmas Day
Jan 1 - New Years Day
Jan 7 - Colin's FIRST birthday!!
Jan 23 - Richard's birthday
Jan 24 - Gaga's birthday
Feb 1 - Our wedding anniversary (FIVE years!)
Feb 14 - Valentine's Day
Feb 22 - Grandma Melba's birthday
Feb 26 - Liam's fifth birthday!
March 12 - Carol's birthday

And then we have a bit of a break until PopPop Art's birthday in April and my birthday (and Mother's Day!) in May.

Eesh - I know a few of those (like the date-iversay and the engage-iversary) aren't real "events" but they're a good enough excuse for us to have a date night, so they count! LOL

I gotta start shopping. And making cards.

Starting the day with human waste

It's Monday today. Just to get the week started off right, both kids decided to grace us with their waste this morning. How did they know it was Monday already? LOL

Greta had a pretty rough night last night. She went to sleep around 7:30, but had woken up crying and screaming 4 times before 11:30. She would fuss for a minute or two, but kept putting herself back to sleep before Dave or I could get in there to check on her, so she seemed to just be waking up and complaining a bit (poor girl). At 11:30, I went in to nurse her since she'd been having such a rough night. Then she slept until 5:30! Yea!

I nursed her again at 5:30 and she zonked back out. Around 7am, I heard her chatting and talking to herself in the crib. It was such a sweet sound and one we hadn't heard from her in a few weeks. This next group of teeth really seems to be taking a toll on her morning moods :(

Anyway, also around 7am, Fin started to stir, so I knew both kids were going to be up and luckily, both seemed to be in relatively good moods. I hopped up to get Greta while she was still happy and brought her back into bed to join the family for cuddling and snuggling. She was SO happy to see Fin and they made each other giggle for a few minutes until she was ready to nurse again.

While I was nursing her, Fin crawled out of bed and was playing on the floor. He wanted to pull the sheets off the bed, but I was sitting on them. We were debating how I could get him the sheets without disturbing Greta and he got very still and glassy-eyed for a moment. I knew what that look meant.

I asked him if he was peeing, and of course he said no. This kid can go all night and wake up dry in the mornings, but we still make him sleep in a diaper because he will REFUSE to go sit on the potty first thing in the morning.

A moment later, he says, "It's water on my leg!" Yep, that diaper leaked.

While Dave tried to get the soaking diaper off Fin (with many yells and complaints from Fin - "It's WATER! It's NOT pee!") I had the bright idea of taking Greta's diaper off while I nursed her. Not completely off, of course, I just thought I could get it undone while she was laying in my lap and then take it off her before she crawled away. Since she's so mobile these days, she doesn't like staying still for diaper changes, so I figured this way we'd only have to keep her still to get the new diaper ON, not also take off the old diaper.

So about this time, Dave is giving up on arguing with Fin and Greta's about done. I leaned over to pick up the sheet that had been on the floor and as it landed on the bed, I realized it was wet. Fin had apparently been standing on it when his diaper leaked. I quickly tossed it back off the bed so the bedsheet didn't get wet and it landed in a sopping mess right on my leg. Yuck.

I asked Dave to grab Greta so I could clean up the sheets, floor and my leg and as he picked her up, I held on to her wet (so I thought) diaper. Then I heard the telltale plunks.

Yep, she'd pooped!

I caught most of it in the diaper and warned Dave as he carried her out of the room to get her cleaned up, but this was of course the moment that Fin decided to return to the room. I'm not sure a 2-year-old has more delight than when they're dancing around singing "Where's the poopy?"

So that was the start to my week this morning. Pee on my leg (and my sheets and my floor) and poop in the carpet.

Kids are fun! LOL. I still want to know how they knew it was Monday.

New look!

Okie doke - I decided the red blog background was just a bit too... jarring, somehow. I think this one is a bit more mellow. What do you think?