Pumpkins for our pumpkins

We had a visit from Rick and Sue this weekend, and it was one fun filled weekend.  We started off with a trip to the park, where Jacob couldn't catch Sue because he wore his flip flops which kept coming off, and he didn't let her forget that if he would have had his "man" (tennis) shoes on then he would have caught her for sure!  We then took the kids to the library, checked out a few books and DVDs, Jacob played some computer games, and Annie acted like a kid in a candy store...she thinks it is her mission to get ALL those books off those shelves.  We took the kids to Chuck E Cheese for lunch to meet Brian (who of course had more fun than anyone), he even told me that if we would have left him alone on this new Operation game, we would have been choosing something on the treasured back wall of the prize counter...we still ended up with over 550 tickets and the kids each got a few things, which I think at least two are already broken.  Gwyn had talked a big talk all morning about that she was going to give Chuck E a high five and a hug, but she changed her tune when we actually pulled into the parking lot.  She got all anxious and said she didn't want to go because she thought she was really going to have to do it.  Of course Chuck E didn't show (we were the only ones there and he mainly only shows for birthday parties), so the kids had lots of fun and even came up with some really good ideas of where Chuck E might be..."maybe he's sick and when to the Chuck E doctor...maybe he's on vacation...maybe he got in trouble and is in time out." 

We took the kids to the Fall Festival at Jacob and Gwyn's preschool.  The kids had so much fun, playing games, Jacob got his face painted, Gwyn made an Indian hat, Brian sent Jacob to the Whataburger booth to get him some coupons, etc.  We later dressed the kids up in their costumes (Jacob:  Buzz Lightyear, Gwyn:  Tinkerbell, and Annie:  a lion which both Jacob and Gwyn had been on previous Halloweens) and hit the pumpkin patch at the Methodist church near our house.  The kids wanted to pick their own pumpkins.  Jacob had taught Gwyn about small, medium, large which he learned in school, so he wanted to make sure he got a large pumpkin, Gwyn got a medium, and Annie got a small pumpkin...Jacob ended up getting one of the biggest pumpkins there, he was proud!  This is the one picture we got of Annie with her lion hat on...and only with Brian holding both of her hands so she can't get it off!

She did this at least 50 times...Brian was worn out, but he was a good sport as I would say "put it on her again!" and then try to snap a picture with it on

 She liked the little pumpkins...probably because she is one!

 Rick and Sue with the kids:

 Is this one medium?

 She said, I'll get one of these for Annie!

 Jacob liked this bumpy one, but ended up finding a bigger one, which he rolled around and Rick had to carry out.

 Riding the horse...Gwyn is about to fall off!

 Ride 'em cowboy...wait, you aren't Woody, you are Buzz!

 Sue and Jacob:

You should have seen Jacob's face when Brian carved Buzz Lightyear into his pumpkin...My Daddy is Awesome!

This past week was also picture day at school.  Of course just a few days before pictures he fell at the plant store and hit his face on the concrete, so he went to school with a big scab across his nose for pictures.  I told him to please not mess his face up anymore before pictures, and then I took him to get his haircut at Sports Clips (I usually cut it myself, but decided if he was going to have a big scrape on his nose then at least his hair could look good).  Well, apparently Sports Clips doesn't cater to moms with 3 kids, the decor is set up like a mens locker room with flat screens playing ESPN everywhere.  I told Gwyn to go sit down and watch TV and she asked to watch Dora!  She then commented on the 49ers football clip that "that red one hit that white one."  Jacob wanted his hair slicked up for pictures, so I snapped a few pictures before school that day:

 She likes her Gator shirt that Jason got her:

Brian picks this shirt out all the time...it says Daddy's little monkey:

Sue and Rick got Annie this new dress and her own horse ride on toy (she's been using the green John Deere tractor):

Here are just a couple more pictures of the kids playing outside.  Jacob LOVES his fishing pole and it is actually amazing how good he is at casting it out in the yard.  He and Gwyn have so much fun playing together.  The other day he told me that he saw Gwyn on the playground and he went and gave her a hug and that she cried when he had to go inside with his class.  I asked Gwyn about it and she said (very emotionally), "Jacob walked away!" I then explained that if she went with Jacob's class they wouldn't have a snack or lunch for her because her snack and lunch are with her class, which seemed to make sense to her.

 She loves to slide, and is quick to find out which is the fastest slide at any playground.

 Gwyn made leaf, rock, flower/weed, and feather soup...YUMMY!

 Jacob said this was the best sucker ever!

 Laundry basket fun!

Some artwork from this past week, Gwyn was really proud of her mud pit for her pigs.  She said her hands got really yucky but she washed them.  She also now wants a pet pig that she can make a mud bed for.

Funny things the kids said this week:

Brian:  Gwyn, do you want to go to work with me?
Gwyn:  Yes, but I don't have any work clothes (oh, she is learning it so young!)
Jacob (he leaned over and whispered in my ear he had a secret): I want to get Gwyn something with a princess on it for her birthday.  Don't tell

Gwyn (as we are leaving the pumpkin patch):  I don't want to go home, I want to go to Target (that's my girl!)
Brian (after reading a book to the kids about getting to do more things as your grow up):  What do you want to do when you grow up?
Gwyn:  Cook
Jacob:  Mow the yard with your big mower
Gwyn:  Annie, we have a secret surprise for your birthday...it's an Elmo chair (note to self: do not tell Gwyn anything you don't want everyone to know)
Gwyn:  I'm medium, Jacob is large, and Annie is baby large.
Me:  You mean Annie is small?
Gwyn:  No, Annie is baby large. (OK?!)
Gwyn:  There's sparky!  (This is hilarious, I walk at the park with Annie and Gwyn after I drop Jacob off on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and of course we get lapped by people walking or running with dogs, and we have a little game where we try to guess the dogs names, and Gwyn remembers what we guessed their names were from before...we had guessed ones name was Sparky and on the second time around when they were passing us, she said, "There's sparky!" and the owner just looked at us like we were nuts! Ha!)

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:



And a few minutes later...here she and Gwyn are, as we are trying to show how she can clap and wave:

Oh, how we LOVE October!

 

Oh how we love the month of October around here...the weather has changed here in Houston and it is SO nice...lows in the 60s and highs in the low 80s.  We have been playing outside everyday, and gone to the park just about every other day.  We have some big plans this month, we will of course be going to the pumpkin patch, going to the Fall Festival at Jacob and Gwyn's preschool, going to the Fall Festival at our church, Rick and Sue are coming in for a weekend, my mom is coming in for a weekend, we will be celebrating Annie's 1st birthday (I can't believe it!), hopefully taking a trip to the zoo when Brian gets off early one Friday this month, and of course, the next best thing to Christmas...we will be taking the kids trick or treating (which has been talked about for months around here!). 

Our outside playtime around the house is revolved around bugs.  Locusts are big right now, but we did discover that those shiny green looking beetle/june bug things are very resiliant, let the kids handle them, drop them, etc. and are very good about just crawling all over their arms which they think is just fantastic.  We did discover that Annie is the bravest of the bunch...she was the first to grab a locust while it was crawling, which then started buzzing, she held it for the longest time trying to figure it out.  This gave Jacob all the courage he needed, so now he will pick up and play with the real ones.  If you take a look at Jacob's hair, he is liking me to put mousse in it and spike it up...he thinks this is great and wants to go look at it in my mirror when I'm finished fixing it.  This is a welcome change to the "bed head" that he is usually walking around with.

Here are a couple of more pictures of the kids playing outside, Gwyn found some seeds and wants to plant them and grow something really big.  This dress is one she calls her "pirate" dress.  She wanted to wear it the other day because she said Nicholas liked it...really, it starts this early?!?!

Jacob and Annie digging...it is amazing how dirty these kids can get.  I joke that I'm drowning in my own laundry! 

Jacob thinks these monkey silly bands are the coolest thing.  They glow in the dark.  He gave one to all the kids at Sunday school and one to Gwyn's Sunday school teacher, Mr. Mike. 

I still can't believe how fast Annie is growing.  It is going so much faster than with Jacob or Gwyn, I turn around and she is just everywhere!

The kids got five Care Bears from a friend of mine who is going through some toys.  If you sit them all around in a circle, then they will talk back and forth and sing songs.  This was great at first because for about 30 minutes the kids sat around them in awe...now they have officially become the most annoying toys I've ever heard...and I've now got my friend on my list to give her son the most annoying toy ever made for his next birthday!  I think that is some unwritten rule, you know how well you are liked by some people by the loudness of the toys they give your kids!  The kids are having great fun with them, they push them in their strollers, sit them at the dinner table, and they give everyone their own to sleep with.  Rick even got one to sleep with when he was here one night last week!  Gwyn loves them so much, she even knows all their names.  They say they are "wishing bear" or "friendship bear" when you turn them on and she can tell you which one is which!

Annie is in a "I-love-my-Daddy-more-than-anything" phase.  You should see her get all giddy when Brian gets home, and how excited she gets when he picks her up.  She also follows him around like a little puppy, it is pretty cute!

Here is a picture of some of the artwork from this past week.  Jacob covered the three little pigs, and is super excited about Storybook Land at school.  I'm going to try to volunteer for one of the booths that day, so I know he'll be excited about seeing me.

Poor little Annie is cutting her top teeth, one just broke through the skin yesterday and she's having a rough time of it...

I tried on several occasions to get a good picture for Annie's first birthday invitations, I'm not doing that great.  She is always distracted by whatever Jacob and Gwyn are doing, and here are the best two I have gotten so far...I'm trying again tomorrow:

Since I was taking pictures of Annie in that little chair, Jacob and Gwyn wanted their turn too, Jacob sporting his camo shorts and superhero t-shirt:

And Gwyn looking so much older thatn 2 1/2 here!

I painted Annie's toes for the first time, Gwyn wanted her to match her, so it is a light pink that you can barely see in this picture:

Funny things the kids said this week:

Jacob:  Is this fish chicken?  (Everything is chicken in our house: chicken, pork, beef, fish...we were eating fish tacos, and I told Brian that Annie likes this fish, and that was Jacob's next question, ha!)

Jacob:  God made two DeAnne's? (Jason's girlfriend has a twin sister and they came over last weekend)

Gwyn:  Look Mommy, my nose can make bubbles (oh the hidden talents we have at our house!)

Jacob:  I like the troll (on Dora) because he has a cool beard like Papa and Santa Claus

Gwyn: Josh don't have two teeth, the tooth fairy take them (she is very upset about this and tells everyone)

Gwyn:  My shoes just got up and walked away, I think I need a cage for in my cubby for them (in response to me asking her why her shoes aren't in her cubby)

Jacob:  If he gets hurt, we just need to take him to the bug doctor (talking about one of his poor bugs he plays with)

Gwyn:  I need a snack (before she even got down from the dinner table)

Jacob:  I'm gonna tell them to come in here and take all our food so you can't cook, and then we will just have to always have snacks (talking about bugs that come in our house).

Gwyn:  I got my toes paint!