Fall Family Fun

For many years I always said spring was my favorite season, because my birthday is all after all in the spring and who doesn't like celebrating a good birthday (ha ha), but now if asked the question I would say Fall. (And I am sometimes asked this question as I do have a four year old). I like the cool but not cold weather, I like the fires and pretty colors, I really like the start of the fall lineup on tv (I'm a drama queen, what can I say), Jay loves the start of football season, and we all love apples, pumpkins, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Joseph in particular really goes crazy over Halloween. Costumes, Decorations, Treats, the whole works. Walking or driving around to look for cool or scary or festive houses is now part of our daily routine. He's also a bit of an apple fanatic, eats them almost every day and yesterday he showed us the proper way to pick an apple off the tree (he learned at school). Hannah and Leah also picked their own and seemed to enjoy doing so. Though they didn't like the wind so much, as while it was sunny it was a very blustery day (as Joseph and Winnie the Pooh like to say). This year I also very much like fall because it's the end of a somewhat crazy busy period of our lives and we are now back to normal (whatever that is!) and getting to do fun stuff, relax, and spend time with family while enjoying the new house that no longer has any gross carpet, leaky roof, or crazy colors. (well, except in the dining room which is covered with two very unflattering patterns of wallpaper as pictured in the prior birthday posting. That will be our winter project!)

Hannah and Leah are TWO!

And they can tell you that too! And when you ask "Who is Four?" they shout "Jo Jo"! Though now we are starting to work on having them call their big brother Joseph. They run around, enjoy doing art projects, love to dance, like having books read to them, and they both tuck their babies into bed at night. Hannah is still quite attached to her nuk and I think Leah will always be attached to her thumb (we have no plans to remove it). They are done with cribs and starting to use toilets, and they are very familiar with the word NO. Hannah's most frequently used phrases are "I need more" and "I need help" and Leah quite often asks for help finding her "Bear Bear" and has been caught several times now taking Hannah's nuk away from her and running into the closet with it to hide. They are both fascinated with shoes, and hats, and coats and have quite a love for all that is fashion. Leah is quite the milk drinker whereas I think Hannah is just ok with it (and Joseph hates it). It gets pretty loud at dinner time when everyone is either pumped up and re-energized or frustrated that they didn't get their favorite meal, but it gets much quieter at 7pm when the girls go to bed and reaches pure silence at 8pm after Joseph goes down. We're a house full of extremes and excitement and we wouldn't have it any other way!

Popular Morning Scene

The girls frequently wake up before Joseph and wander their way into his room through the bathroom, sometimes landing in his bed saying "Jo Jo sleeping" or "Jo Jo wake UP". Though in this particular scene we had already changed the girls before they went running over and crawled into bed with him. Joseph's room has blue walls (with a hint of grey) and new dinosaur bedding that he had a hand in picking out. The orange T-Rex (and sale price) sealed the deal.

Conway Kids, How Cute!

I think this may be the longest I've ever gone without posting something....though I have been taking pictures all the while. I am after all, still me. And the kids are, still quite cute. Hannah in fact knows how to cheese for the camera, and will ham it up when given the opportunity, whereas Leah will turn and run away and refuse to look in your direction when the photo snapping device appears. Joseph, well he could go either way. Sometimes he likes to make all kinds of different faces and then review them himself in the viewer. He hasn't started approving his own photos yet, so for now I still have control. He took some pictures with the camera at school of his friends, and so far he's having a good time with 4K (they call it kindergarten, some might call it preschool). He learned about apples and had some fall homework where he had to cut out his own apple on paper and then color it, and then the class went to an apple orchard to learn about the types of different apples and pick their own from a tree. This past weekend he had to draw a bat and come up with an interesting bat fact to share with his class (he told his friends that bats eat mosquitoes, and I in turn learned how to spell the word mosquitoes) The girls have been getting some assignments too and I have to say, they are doing a good job at introducing us slowly to this homework concept but it causes just a bit of fear of what is to come. Joseph can now zip up some of his coats and the girls can both put theirs on (and you must let them do it by themselves or brace yourselves for quite a scene, they are both quite independent). When Hannah does it she then shouts, "I did it, I did it!" and Leah sometimes will clap and say "Yea". The girls have the same reaction when they go potty. They aren't doing it all the time, and we're not really able to keep up with it, but they practice at daycare quite a bit. It's possible that underwear is in our future. Twin beds are also in our future, but we haven't gotten around to that yet. As you can see, the girls crib mattresses are on the floor in their room and that's what we've been using ever since our little escapee (Leah) started treating the crib like a playground jungle gym. And as it turns out, she just likes to escape. She frequently makes appearances long after her bedtime, to the point where Joseph now says as part of his bedtime routine "but I'm hungry and thirsty, don't let Rosco in here, watch for Leah, and I love you". We have found Leah in Joseph's room on several evenings, or noticed her head poking around the corner of his doorway with what appears to be a smirk, and have also had Joseph get out of bed several times to alert us to the wandering girl. Hannah however sleeps through all of this, and lays quietly in bed after being tucked in for the night. Then in the morning you find them either giggling together on one of their mattresses covered in blankets, or a few times we've found them in Joseph's room attempting to wake him up. The three of them do enjoy each other's company...most of the time.

Someone's Getting Older....

Joseph was pretty excited over Jay's birthday this weekend, he finally got to go out to dinner! (he'd been asking for weeks) And then of course there's the pizza and the cake. Jay got to enjoy a Steelers win, which was a nice end to a long weekend of painting and doing things around the house. As you can see, the dining room has not yet been tackled, but is currently targeted for this winter. We're going to try and take a break over the holidays before tackling wallpaper. After all, it is football season so we have to give dad at least a few Sundays off. ;) Happy Birthday Jay!

Weddings, Ring Bears, and Dresses

We all had a great time at Trish & Troy's wedding this past weekend, especially the Ring Bear Joseph (I kept trying to enunciate the bear-er, but couldn't get it across). He was excited to play a part in their special day, and was only mildly disappointed when he found out there wouldn't be cake during the ceremony and that he wasn't going to be able to make a speech using the microphone. Hannah and Leah looked quite lovely in their little dresses. Leah's was actually a last minute purchase an hour before the wedding because when I took her intended purple dress out of the bag, I discovered the security tag was still on! After driving all around town trying to find a store that could remove it, I gave up and just bought a new dress. Problem solved, and a fabulous time was had by all!

First Day of School!

First Day of School, First Day of School! (All you Nemo fans will know this little chant) Joseph started 4K on Tuesday at Grandma's House (where all the kids have gone for daycare). He was pretty excited because it meant that show and tell was starting back up. He quickly selected his bat mobile and batman figure to bring in, and later decided that he should also bring in his batman costume for full effect. In addition to show and tell, he also had to think about what his favorite recipe was (he decided on star wars cookies) so I wrote that down for him, and he then put his name on the top of the page all by himself. The letter "S" has been a tricky one but he didn't need any help this time. He's also learned our address, and now the debate is, what phone number to teach him? I mean really, three phone numbers does seem a bit much for him to need to know. I guess we'll start with the home phone number, and then move on to my cell number. Such dilemmas. Joseph also had school supplies for the first time! A pencil box, scissors, glue sticks, regular glue, crayons, markers, notebooks and folders. I made the mistake of buying him a cool transformers pencil box before realizing that the items were all "shared". Oops! I warned the teacher that she may need to give him the transformer box first in order to avoid any catastrophic event. In a few weeks, Joseph has a field trip to the theater downtown to see Seussical the musical, followed by a visit to a farm. And before you know it, it'll be Halloween!

Getting Things Done & Making Friends

The only way to get things done around the new house on the weekends is to have one of us take the kids somewhere while the other paints (in this example, I am the field trip coordinator and Jay is the painter, so I snapped a few photos of the kids having fun at the Children's Museum the other morning. If it's a quick job we can just turn on a movie, give everyone a snack, and shut the door to the family room so we don't loose anyone and just keep an ear out for screaming. (yes, this house is much bigger than the old one and we have in fact lost each other in it.) Rosco specifically has shut himself into a closet by mistake as well as let himself out through the broken screen door. With the closet incident we could hear him barking, and it only took 10 minutes to narrow in on his location, but when he left the house that was a bit longer of an incident. Jay met a lot of the new neighbors driving around looking for him though! And we did actually get him back from one neighbor who walked him back to our old house and then contacted our realtor. We even managed to score two babysitters out of the deal! Two girls were part of the group that found him and dropped off letters at our house afterwards. There's also a 12 year old next door that Joseph has taken a liking too. He's started playing with her 5yr old brother but also enjoys hanging out with the middle brother and older sister as well. We've actually met a ton of neighbors, and just last night met some folks who moved in this summer and have a 2 mos old girl, who if I've calculated correctly will only be one school year behind Hannah and Leah. There are quite a few kids in the neighborhood so I'm hoping they all find fun playmates nearby. But back to the subject of getting things done, Jay is actually finished with Joseph's room....two coats of primer and one coat of paint to cover up the bright red and holes in the walls and it is now quite nice. I thought I'd clean the carpet this morning and officially call it done, and would you believe that the carpet in fact was dyed ?!?!?!? We now know where the "dirty" feet are coming from....black dye! I washed it twice with the bissel and the water was colored with dye each time. We thought we were just going to do the attic carpet and the girl's carpet (both are truly nasty due to the cats that previously had control of this place), but we're thinking Joseph's bedroom and our bedroom are not too far off in the future. (ours is a lovely shade of faded aqua) As we "finish" rooms I'll post some before and after photos. We have a lot to do but we're already loving some things, like the second floor family room. We have the computer, tv, toys and everything set up in there for the kids and us to relax and play with and it already seems to be the space we use most along with the kitchen and patio. We've never had sliding doors to outside before, and it is pretty nice. Eventually I assume the kids will actually learn to close the screen behind them and to not push on it every time it's open. The location is turning out to be really nice too, it's a pretty quiet street (in terms of traffic and people walking by) but is conveniently located near a lot of things. Yesterday we moved my sister in (Gina is going to be living in the finished attic, and we're pretty excited to have another pair of hands around to paint and play with kids) and this afternoon we are taking a break! Jay went to the Brewers vs Cubs game with friends and when the kids wake up from their naps I'm taking them over to the old neighborhood to hang out with friends. It'll be a bit strange seeing the back of our house from their yard and have it not be our house!

Waupaca

I meant to post this a while ago....before we moved Jay and I got away for a weekend without the kids and went camping in Waupaca with friends. We spent some time on the chain of lakes doing some fishing, went to the anual corn roast, and cooled off in the water. Jay was very much in his element....notice the big smiles. :)

On the Move!

Yes, we're moving! You might say that we've been slow in getting the word out, but things have been a bit busy and as crazy as this sounds, we didn't know definitively until this week that things were a done deal. Between our sellers, our buyers, and the bank it's been a bit of a bumpy road but it all came together at the end of last week. Now we just have to make it through moving and closing all in one day! (Another frustrating point but we aren't exactly in control of the situation, and I'm sure you can imagine then how someone like me is dealing with all this craziness. If you can't imagine it, just picture lots of spreadsheets, boxes, freaking out, and my phone number displayed at the bank on the "do not answer" list). But all of that is done and now we just have unpacking, painting, and lots of fun projects to look forward to! (And if you think I really mean fun, then you aren't catching my sarcasm). The new house offers a lot more space and places that we can walk to, but we are definitely going to miss our bungalow and all of the great friends and neighbors we have nearby. We moved into our first house in July of 2002, experienced our first alley part and got our first dog, and soon after got married and had a great time celebrating Thursdays, Football, Halloweens, New Years, Summers, and Snow Days with neighbors that have become some of our closest friends. We brought Joseph, Hannah, and Leah home from the hospital to this house and watched them learn how to walk in these rooms and turn into little kids running around in the alley and playing with pals. It's so hard to leave all this because of the memories and people, but we hope that over time we will feel the same way about the new house and that there are more fun times to come. We move on Wednesday and we'll be camping out in our house Tuesday night with a few pac n plays, a buzz lightyear sleeping bag, and an air mattress. Joseph is pretty excited. Wish us luck!

Girls Going Potty!

I know, we are just as surprised as anyone when we got a note from daycare saying that both Hannah and Leah had gone potty at school on Thursday! I guess after nap Hannah woke up and said "potty, potty" so her teachers took her to the bathroom, she sat on the toilet holding herself up, and quickly threw down a #1 and a #2! Later when Leah woke up they asked her if she needed to go potty, and she also responded with a yes of "potty", went over to the bathroom with her teacher, held herself up on the seat, and then tinkled away. On Friday Hannah went again after nap time, but Leah had to wait in line too long because another classroom was in there, so she ended up using her diaper instead. Probably a smart choice. On Saturday the girls slept late after nap and we were in a hurry to get out to the alley party, but we tried today and Hannah surprised us again by taking a #2 on the toilet and then giving us all high fives when she was done. Leah took a turn as well but it turned out to be a practice run. Guess we'll just go with the flow and see what happens!

What a Kid

Pictures taken in the alley one night while Joseph was snacking and hamming it up for the photographer.

Water Babes

That's what all the kids have turned into....a bunch of fun lovin water babes. I thought I would be less nervous once Joseph knew how to swim.....but I was wrong. He now has no fear, and jumps in without his vest, goes all the way under, swims a few feet with his head down to get back to the side, or hops around on one foot to get to where he's going. Once he has the actual skills to go with the confidence he's developed, then I'll stop being nervous. For now there's a fine line between his version of swimming and my version of drowning. ;) The girls seem to be motivated by all the cool stuff Joseph is doing in the water too, and they have decided they like the pool enough to go in it and stay in it for more than a few minutes. Jay had Hannah kicking and blowing bubbles the other day! And of course once Leah saw this she tried it too. Now they are both crazy kickers and like to also float on their backs.....in the pool and in the bathtub. Today they both even laid on their bellies in the tub and stuck their faces in, and Leah dumped a cup of water over her own head! The three of them have been having a lot of fun together as you can see, and apparently Hannah had a little too much fun with one of the noodles. We're gonna have to keep an eye on that girl!

Smiley Faces

Scenes from School

The girl's teachers take lots of pictures of their activities during the week, and have started sending us smileboxes (picture shows) that show off their skills. Looks like Hannah and Leah are doing a lot of cooking along with their art projects and and playing. And they've even learned how to vote! We're amazed at all the fun and creative things that all the kids have been exposed to...most of which I would never think to do at home. They've all had fun with different "flannels", which are laminated pictures of things that they are learning for the week or month. Joseph was a huge fan of these, and the girls have had them in their classrooms too. Hannah and Leah have taken a few outings to parks that are in walking distance to school, and Joseph has been taking buses all over the place to go to water parks, plays, the zoo, and next week he gets to take a trip to a farm. On Joseph's field trip last week, he actually managed to loose his sandals. The director called that afternoon to apologize and say that they were doing everything they could do to locate the shoes, but I've already been broken into daycare and realize some things do get lost (though it did take me two years to feel this way) and I was just glad they hadn't lost him! (every phone call should start with "everyone is OK") Besides, for the most part their shoes are all bargains from Kohls clearance rack with coupons and out of coincidence I had just stopped there over lunch and bought him a new pair of perfectly priced sandals. I suspect the old ones that were falling apart were chucked off his feet on the bus ride back to school. He sometimes does this in the minivan too. We can loose shoes....but we absolutely cannot loose our most favorite stuffed animals. Joseph has grover at home, and a tiger at school. Both are key to happiness. And Leah like her brother, has a bear at home and a lion at school. We would be in huge trouble if either were to go missing. Hannah on the other hand, has bunny at home, and just her pacifier at school. The goal is to get rid of the pacifier by the time she turns 2, so we may have to substitute another favorite stuffed friend at some point. Joseph continues to work on his letters and numbers, and writing his name. He even brought home a piece of paper with all of our names that his teacher helped him with. And the girls are learning their colors and shapes, and apparently are each others best friends. They tend to play with each other most of the time and will only hold hands with each other on the playground. But when they are separated into different classrooms they play well with the other kids, so I don't think we need to worry about anything now. Just a big decision for when they go to kindergarten but we have some time to figure that one out. A more recent milestone, is that we are to the point that we can walk all three kids in and out of daycare at the same time? (if parked close enough to the door, in order to avoid any chance sprints out into the street) We used to take multiple trips in and out, and sometimes still do depending on how much stuff there is to carry. By fall we'll be pros.