Katt-a-blog: RIP Hoppy the Cricket

Well, Jacob had a pet...for 3 days. It's name was Hoppy (aka Chirpy - he called it this for about an hour). He was so excited about his pet. He said he was going to bring it to school on Pet Day. He asked to invite him to Annie's birthday party, and then he wanted to have the party outside so that Hoppy could come. The water you see in this picture is pool water, and I think the chlorine lead to Hoppy's untimely death. Jacob is in mourning and very upset. I asked if he wanted to go get a goldfish, and he said no, he wanted Hoppy the cricket because he found him himself. Poor little guy:(

Here is a picture of all 3, the best I could do out of 33 pictures!

The kids are playing so well together. It is funny that Jacob and Gwyn will play with whatever Annie is getting into, and of course Annie wants to play with whatever Jacob and Gwyn are playing with. We really only got any use out of our baby toys with Jacob. After that, Gwyn wanted to play with Jacob's toys and now Annie wants to play with both their toys. Here they are playing with some plastic containers in the kitchen, and if you are wondering what they are doing with their jackets on, apparently the people in Houston require jackets when it gets 68 outside. I didn't put them in jackets on the way to school, and there were other kids in jackets, so they got to put their jackets on at home:

Annie has had a rough week. She didn't nap for two days, was irritable and fussy, not eating well, and I blamed it on one of her top teeth coming in. I finally took her to the Dr and sure enough, double ear infection...poor baby. She takes her medicine well, and was feeling better within a day. Despite the ear infections, she made some milestones this week...she can officially climb stairs...this is NOT a good thing, and she claps and waves. When you say "Yay Annie," she claps for herself and smiles, it is so cute. I gave her some ravioli when she was feeling better...I call this one "I like it when my daddy cleans me up the best!"

We checked out the new library by our house. Gwyn loved the library...who knew the new one over here had such a selection of Dora. They each got to pick out 3 books and 1 DVD. Jacob's picks: a Star Wars book, Princess and the Pea (he just read this one at preschool), an Up book (that Disney movie about the guy whose house travels via balloons), and a Bernstein Bears DVD. He likes variety. Not Gwyn. Gwyn's picks: 3 Dora books and a Dora DVD. I can just bet what she trades those out for this week! Gwyn is also self appointed herself to Annie's party planning committee. She says we need balloons, streamers, and a cake. She's told me this about 20 times in the last week. Gwyn went for about a week without a nap, and it caught up to her. She even asked to take a nap on a couple of days, and we are thankful to be back in that routine. She can really kick up some tears about little things, and no napping just exasperates the drama over something like the toenail polish coming off her toes, or a drop of water on her arm, or losing her clip in her hair, or Annie or Jacob hurting her feelings among other things! Here she is after she fell asleep on the way back from the doctor:

We headed to the park on Monday, Jacob and Gwyn's preschool was closed on Columbus Day. We only stayed for a little over an hour because apparently all schools were closed and everyone had the same idea. I get anxious when I've got all 3 running in different directions and when playgrounds get crowded it gets hard to keep up with them, but they had fun:

She calls this her Super Gwyn slide:

Poor little Annie just wants so badly to join in the fun. She thankfully has moved on from eating mulch, and started just taking off. When she sees you coming for her she starts practically running as fast as her little legs will take her to get away...oh the fun has begun!

Jacob has become very interested computer games. He played the computer at the library the other day, and I was so surprised at how well he could play some games. So, we've instituted 20 minutes of computer playtime a day. So far, we're only on the starfall.com website, but hopefully in a few days I'll find some other things for him too. He gets so proud of himself when he completes a game, and he wants NO help at all. He's also discovered games on my phone (which Gwyn plays too), and he loves to use the camera on my phone. I think he took over 100 pictures in just a few days...here are a few: (he was so proud of sneaking this picture of the Dr at Annie's appointment)

Annie gets to turn around and face forward when she turns 1, so since I had a 20% off coupon at Babies R Us, we went ahead and bought Annie's new car seat. It is just hanging out in the playroom until next week, but here is Annie trying it out (right after I took this picture she sneezed and her pacifier when flying across the room...Jacob and Gwyn thought that was SOOO funny). The kids have such great fun with this car seat...it has magically been transformed into a spaceship, a train engine, and of course, a doctors/dentist chair:

It is a little surprising how cold our pool has gotten over the past few weeks. Some rain and a week of temperatures getting down in the 60s really lowered the temperature, but that couldn't stop Jacob and Brian from swimming in October:

Annie, Gwyn and I sat this one out, but Annie loves to walk around with her sunscreen:

I thought this was too funny. Brian had written me a recipe down, and before I turned around Annie had gotten ahold of it. I tried looking the recipe back up on the internet, but couldn't find it, so I made do with what I had left:

Here is a picture of some artwork from the week, Jacob was proud of his Rapunzel's hair:

Funny things the kids said this week:
Jacob (as we pass a car wreck): They are gonna need a lot of sticky tape to fix that.
Gwyn (to Annie): It's okay baby, I'm here.
Jacob (after I told him Papa couldn't talk on the phone, he was deer hunting): Does Papa like deer? What's he gonna do to those deer:
Me: You'll have to ask your Papa about that (and no, Dad, he won't forget!)
I really wish I had a tape recorder for this conversation we had on the way to school last week (I think it all spurred from two friends down here each having babies last week, and we saw them this week):
Jacob: Whose belly are my babies gonna grow in?
Me: Your wife's when you grow up
Jacob: Whose wife I'm gonna have?
Me: You'll marry a girl and she will become your wife.
Jacob: Whose gonna watch my babies when I go to work?
Me: Probably your wife. What are you going to do for work?
Jacob: I'm gonna be an engineer. (He really did say that, and I think he remembered Rick telling him last week that we were all engineers)
Gwyn: I'll watch your babies.
Jacob: You can't watch my babies, my wife is gonna watch my babies. Where will my babies sit, there isn't any room in your car?
Me: You'll have your own car.
Jacob: Where will they sleep? There aren't any more rooms at our house?
Me: You'll have your own house.
Jacob: Across the street from you?
Me: Yes, and Gwyn can live next to both of us.
Gwyn: Ya, I'm gonna live next to you.
Jacob: Annie can play with my babies.
Me: When you have babies Annie will be all grown up, but maybe she can babysit.
Jacob: Babysit, that's funny Mommy!

Here are a couple of videos...the first one is Annie showing off that she can do spins while drinking her milk, she is liking the whole milk which is good because the countdown is on to stop the formula and bottles: