Fall Leaves & It's not A Fair Mom!

After what feels like 100 years of rain, we finally had a nice day to get out and take some pictures of the kids in the fall colors. I'm not a huge fan of fall - with less sunshine I am noticeably crabbier, but I love having the pictures in the leaves. I guess any reason to take pictures makes me happy.Taking pictures is fun and exciting for me. For the kids, not so much. For the first ten minutes, William refused to look at me. He was fascinated by the tree.

Turns out it was covered in ladybugs
Playing peekaboo behind the tree
This one might be my new favorite of him
Peek!
Reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaach up for those leaves!

Serious, blue eyed boy.

So handsome - I think he is watching John and Amelia
Technically, Amelia is a better subject because she has an easier smile (for now) and kind of stays where I put her.

But, it was hard work keeping the leaves out of her mouth! Good thing I had assistant Daddy!

No no! No eating leaves!

Serious Mia
This one might be my favorite of Amelia's shots.

Checking out those leaves

And a few tries of getting a cute on of the two together

This one is probably the best, but still not a great shot

My two pumpkins sitting in the leaves!

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We had some friends over last week. That seems to be the only way I get to see anyone these days - if they come to us. The nap time overlay has been very difficult for me to work around. The choices are:

a) Go out during Amelia's morning nap time. As a result, she does not nap in the morning. Or afternoon. Or evening. In fact, she becomes so overtired she never, ever sleeps again. Honestly, when the girl is overtired, she will NOT sleep.

b) Go out directly after Amelia's morning nap, AKA lunchtime. William is a complete pill and fights every step of the way, making a 3 minute errand into a forty minute experience that leaves me wanting to poke myself in the eye to make the whining/crying/flailing of limbs stop.

c) Go out after lunch, AKA someone is usually sleeping, but not two somebodies. Here, take option A and combine will a slightly reduced options B. Add a half a cup of harried mama from the ordeal of hustling two small children out the door who are not in any hurry at all and it sums it up. Also, when returning from our outing, neither child is interested in napping.

d) Don't go anywhere. Ever. Never ever.

e) Become the hostess with the mostess and invite people over on a regular basis.

We happen to do a mix of option D (when I haven't had time to put anything together or people are out of town) and option E. We occasionally throw in some option A, because that is when storytime at the library is and I love storytime.

Anyhow, we had friends over in the morning and William was playing with the five year old daughter of my friend. I was enjoying some adult interaction and I missed any conversation between the kids. Later on, I was certain where this phrase came from:

"But Mooooom (emphasize with whine), it's notttttt a faaaaaaaaiiir!"

Which cracks me up. I know we'll hear plenty of this soon enough. But, I love how he tries on phrases and things he hears from other kids. Even when he doesn't get it quite right.

Monday, Monday

Amelia= cruising 10/26/2009. Because, you know, she needs to. So far she has cruised her way along the pointy edged coffee table and along the bathtub to the toilet where we have ceramic tile. She has also attempted IN the bathtub, but I quickly put an end to that. Mean mama.


Also, over the last few weekends we've been working hard on redoing our room. When it is all the way done I'll post before and after pictures for your viewing pleasure. But, here is where we're at now (this post is really for my mom & Nicole).

And yes, I rarely make our bed. You never know when I'll have the opportunity to get back in the bed and I don't want to waste time unmaking it again...

My internet friend, Nicole put together an AWESOME plan for redoing our bedroom. I can't tell you how excited I was about her ideas! However, when it came time to do it, I had major cold feet. We started painting this brownish color in our room and I was so worried that I was going to HATE it. I even thought about not doing it...but then I came into our room and John had already started painting. So, we were committed.

However, I have news for you people. This brown (officially Studio Taupe), is terribly romantic. It is soft and relaxing. It makes our furniture pop and somehow our room is more bright. Even with brown on the walls. One hundred percent unexpected. We are now supposed to take another brownish color and paint some horizontal stripes. I'm not sure that is going to happen because we spent close to 7 hours trying to get just ONE strip taped up on the wall without success and several....well, disagreements.

Please keep in mind this is not done! We still have to get the new window treatments up (by the way, Nicole, we broke one of the blinds in the bedroom while painting. Should I get something totally different for both windows while I replacing the one? Or should I just stick with the white mini blinds? Currently in place is a cardboard box cut to fit in the window borrowed from our guest bedroom). We are also going to be doing some organizing/rearranging and picking up some new bedding and items for the walls. So, not done.

Applesauce, Cookies

William's first time helping me make cookies: 10/23/2009

During Amelia's naptimes, I am working to try and do some kind of activity with William a few times a week that is special. Last week, he helped me make cookies for John to take with for a trivia night.

Stirring up the cookies

It's tough to stir at the end!

Proud helper

Enjoying the end result!

Applesauce for the first time on 10/25/09

Applesauce

Please note: she ate peas or green beans before this. Applesauce did not get this messy right away.Biting the spoon. Amelia REALLY likes to use those front teeth. Be warned: no finger is safe!

Cute, messy smile
Yay! Yummy Applesauce
I like to feed Amelia at meals times. Because otherwise things get crazy and she doesn't eat on any kind of schedule. I cannot manage that many things these days. But, the down side is she is VERY easily distracted by the Big Brother. She loves to watch his antics and giggle at his funny faces. This makes her feedings extra messy - her mouth is a moving target as she bobs and stretches to get the best viewing angle. Also - we had BEAUTIFUL leaves this year in our backyard! It was awesome!

Pumpkin Carving

What a busy weekend! John played trivia on Friday night with our friends (I, sadly had to stay home with The Baby Who Will Not Take a Bottle) and we had two pumpkin events this weekend on both Saturday and Sunday!

Saturday was a Pumpkin Carving contest at my former coworkers house. John and I make a great team. I don't really like the carving of the pumpkin. I always have an elaborate plan that doesn't work out because my arm gets tired before I am done. In the end, I'm disappointed because it doesn't look like the idea I had in my head. John strongly dislikes scooping out the pumpkin guts, but doesn't mind carving. I scoop, John carves. Perfect.

William is finally old enough to kind of understand what is going on. He was very excited to be a helper...although he wasn't really a fan of the gooey insides either.

Amelia and her godfather, Jeff. He is showing her the first beer he brewed himself. She was very excited about tasting it and worked very hard to get as much of herself in it without any luck.

Carved pumpkins lit up

Carved pumpkins with a flash. After everyone at the party carves their pumpkin, they get lined up outside on the step for judging. We couldn't stay that long this year though!

On Sunday, our church hosted a Pumpkin Carving Party/Chili Cook Off for families. We had a LOT of fun!

It is wonderful how the big kids let the littler ones in the group. William did not have anyone tell him he wasn't allowed to be with them. They all gave him jobs to do and let him help. Although I wasn't thrilled to find him with sharp objects in his hands every time I turned around, it warmed my heart to see how much fun he was having with the big kids.

Again, tag teaming. John carving.

Kris was so patient with William!

William wanted to have a "happy" pumpkin (L) and a "sad" pumpkin (R)

The chili tasting set up - there was a LOT of chili! People voted by putting money into the jars in front of the crock pots. The person with the most money won the cook off! All the money raised was given to a family in our congregation struggling with medical expenses.

Daddy and Mia. I think she played with this cup more than most of her toys we've paid for with money. Also wearing her cute Halloween pajamas!
Daddy & Mia
Guess what? I am the Chili cook off winner*! I won a ladle trophy and a Halloween set of towels/potholders! Yahoo!

*I found out later, my husband significantly "fixed" the vote. So, I know where the votes came from now!

A Fall Day

We went for a drive to see a friend in the country today. The leaves this year are gorgeous! Too bad it has been so WET we haven't been able to get out much and take pictures. I'll keep working on it!

John was working late last week and I was...well, at my wit's ends inside. So, we went outside to play diggers on the driveway and wait for daddy to come home.

William carefully "parked" his cars in the "garage" on the far left of this picture. Amelia saw an opportunity.
Ooohhhh....diggers.
Do you think he'll notice if I take just one more? Note: she has three out of the five diggers in her possession currently.

William drives his diggers. Serious business folks.

Amelia drives her digger.Amelia drives her digger and William realizes she has a digger. Also note: there are ruffles on her socks. This clearly will balance out the playing with diggers.

William decides he can share the digger bucket with Amelia, but not any of the diggers...

I decide this is a good time to take Ms Amelia and try to get some pictures with her in the fall leaves.

Yummy! Leaves!This photo shoot was initially cut short because - YOU ARE SQUISHING YOU SISTER! NO IT ISN'T FUNNY! STOP RIGHT NOW! ARGH!!! [photo shoot ends] and then it turns out, she managed to get that whole leaf into her mouth without me noticing. So, it was time to stop anyway.

Every little thing he does is magic

Both of them. William and Grandpa are both magic in Amelia's eyes.

Babbling

I love babbling. Love it. I wish I could put it is a bottle and keep it up on a shelf somewhere to be brought out when our kids are teenagers and driving me a whole different variety of crazy.