potty training vicariously through luke skywalker

Potty training may not be something that Owen wants for himself, but he’s been pretty intent on teaching Luke Skywalker to use the potty chair recently.  The other day I walked into the living room to find this:

No, our potty chair doesn’t make it’s permanent residence in the entry way.  Owen had carried it out of the bathroom, stripped Luke Skywalker of his clothing (because Owen REFUSES to wear a stitch of clothing when he sits on the potty chair…evidently this is the way it’s done), and was telling Luke that he needed to go potty on the potty seat. 

Now we can pretty much tell when Owen has to go to the bathroom.  He goes and gets Luke and makes Luke sit on the potty for him.  We’ve tried to get him to show Luke how to go potty, but he’s not interested.  Evidently Luke is the one who has to go.  I’m not sure what to do with this…so we just laugh.

the big costume reveal…

Drumroll please…

Molly was:

And Owen was (that’s Darth Vader for those of you out there that aren’t well versed in the names and appearances of Star Wars characters):

And here’s my attempt to get them to pose for a picture before heading out to trick-or-treat.  They both look pretty miserable.  Molly, due to the fact that I had just set her down in some mud (I found that out when I picked her up) and Owen, because he understands the concept of candy and wanted to get going! 

Last year Owen was a bit young to really “get” Halloween, but this year he LOVED it!  We practiced saying “trick-or-treat” a lot before we went out.  He was doing really well…and then he got to the doors of the houses and froze.  The person would open the door and say hello and he would just look at them and say “Yessss.”  After each house as we were walking away he would look up at us and say, “I say trick-or-treat really loud!”.  Not quite.  He finally overcame his stage fright at the last house and gave a really loud “trick-or-treat!”. 

Here we are at one of the first houses…and this man gives out soda instead of candy (a sure fire way to make your trick-or-treat basket super heavy super fast). 

After a couple of houses, he really got into it.  After each house he’d say “Let’s go to nother house!”. 

Everyone had a great time trick-or-treating.  We were lucky enough to have my mom, dad, and brother, as well as Nana and Bubba there to trick-or-treat with us.  That meant a lot of people to hold onto Molly so Travis and I could go door to door with Owen.  She did great…until she got sleepy and I had forgotten to bring her paci.  Oops.  We went home shortly after that discovery.

Once we got home, Owen couldn’t wait to examine his loot. We let him pick one piece of candy to eat.  He wisely picked out a Hershey’s chocolate bar.  (Some of that Halloween candy is kind of gross…Trav and I quickly went through his candy and sorted the ones that we like and the ones we didn’t like and gave those that we didn’t like to the big kids that came to our house a little too late at night.)

After candy, we got the kiddies ready for bed.  Mimi (my mom) had bought the kids matching Halloween jammies.  Aren’t they cute??

And one of just Molly because she makes picture taking so easy.  (And it’s becoming a lot more fun now that she’s almost able to sit up by herself.)

We ended the night by letting Owen stay up extra late to watch Monsters Inc. with both sets of grandparents.  It was a great night.  We’re so glad that our families got to enjoy it with us!

first things first…carving the pumpkins

Yeah, I know.  You’d like to see the kids in costume.  But I like things orderly, and we carved our pumpkins BEFORE we went trick-or-treating.  Bear with me…the costume post will come.

Nana and Bubba made a last-minute trip to St. Louis to make up for the very sad trip cancellation we had to make last weekend due to Molly’s swine flu fun.  They got here on Friday night in time to watch some Halloween specials with Owen.  Owen’s been really into Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin and the Monsters vs. Aliens Halloween special that was on TV last week.  We’ve watched both numerous times.  The next morning we got up, had a nice big breakfast, and carved pumpkins!  Before the pumpkin carving began, we attempted to get a family picture in our Halloween clothes (well, the kids’ Halloween clothes).  This is the first EVER family picture with Max!  He actually stood still long enough for us to get the picture.  (Notice how Molly has her hand up to pet him.  She loves Max and wants to touch him all the time.)

Then we started carving.  Owen liked digging out pumpkin guts for about 2 minutes.  Then he found better things to do.  Here he is with Nana:

And we managed to get a shot of all 4 of us hard at work before the kids got bored:

Pumpkin carving with my kids was just as I remembered it from my childhood.  The kids’ interest was very brief and then the parents end up doing the work.  Travis and I had fun carving up the pumpkins while the grandparents watched the kids.  They wouldn’t have looked nearly as jack-o-lantern-like had we been carving pumpkins while making sure Molly didn’t ingest pumpkin guts and Owen didn’t run off with a knife.  It was very peaceful…just Travis, me, and the pumpkins.  Here’s the final product:

Then, because freshly carved pumpkins scream photo-op, we rounded up the kids and attempted to get some pictures.  Molly was MUCH more agreeable than Owen.  We got her to smile in almost every picture.  Owen was another story.  The kid doesn’t stop moving.  This is the best we got of the two of them:

Once we got a decent one of the two of them, we let Owen run free and kept the easy child for some more pictures.  Our little pumpkin is such a happy gal!

Stay tuned for the big Halloween costume reveal…

The 3rd Annual “Guess What Owen (and now Molly) Is Going To Be For Halloween Contest

For the third year in a row, it’s  your chance to guess what Owen’s dressing up as for Halloween! [cue the price is right theme music]  If someone guesses correctly prior to Saturday night, they get all kinds of props right here on the blog. I’ll give you two hints: Owen’s not going as John Tesh, and Molly won’t be dressing up as the early 80s whore version of Madonna.

Happy guessing!

Oh, and if you’re wanting some fond memories from the past two years, here ya go.

Year 1: Yoda he was:

Year 2: Good grief:

10 years

In some ways it feels like forever ago that I graduated high school.  In other ways it feels like yesterday.  A couple of weeks ago, the class of ‘99 from Westminster Christian Academy got together for our big reunion.  My high school friends and I tried to make the most of the weekend when we were all back together again.

On Friday afternoon, my best friend, Abbey, and her kids, Harrison and Henry (who is only 4 weeks old!), met us at the Magic House.  We had so much fun playing in the Curious George room. 

Harrison and Owen had a lot of fun going down Curious George’s rocketship slide.  Here’s a picture of Harrison going down the slide with my mom assisting.  (She was nice enough to meet us there and be the extra hands we needed.)

The boys also enjoyed the activities in the Discovery Room (the roomed geared toward preschool-age kids).  Here they are driving a car:

The next morning, I hosted a brunch at my house for some of the girls who were in my high school Bible Study.  Two of our Bible Study leaders were able to come.  It was great to catch up on the past 1o years of our lives.  Below is a picture of our leader, Marilyn, with Emmie, Alicia, Abbey, and me.

After the brunch, we headed up to Westminster for the annual carnival.  It’s always kind of crazy to me to have my kids in the school where I went to high school.  I still don’t feel like I’m much older than the kids who are still in school there…but then I realize that they think I am.  After all, I’m the one chasing around a 2 year old and pushing a baby in a stroller.  Here’s a picture of us eating lunch with my friend, Laura, her husband, Dave, and their son, Jacob.

That night was the big party.  It was held at a bar downtown called Harry’s.  It was a lot of fun to reconnect with people I haven’t seen in years.  If was really computer savvy, I’d find a picture of us from high school so you could compare the difference.  I’m not that savvy.  So here’s the picture of us from the 10 year reunion.  Really, we don’t look all that different.

And now a picture of Abbey and me.  I’ve been friends with Abbey since 7th grade.  It was fun to go with someone that I talk to on a very regular basis so we could hang together during those awkward moments.

And finally, a shot of the whole class.  (Well, those 30 of us that were in attendance.) 

Reunions are funny things.  It’s surreal being in the same place with people that you grew up with but haven’t seen in 10 years.  In some ways it feels like nothing has changed.  In other ways, everything has.  Overall, the reunion was lots of fun.  I’m just bummed that Travis didn’t get to experience his.

friends…and an update

Just a quick picture of Owen and his BFF, Ella.  It’s fun to look back at pictures from healthier times when we could actually leave the house…

Update on our swine flu baby…Molly woke up today without a fever!!  It broke late yesterday afternoon and hasn’t returned.  She still didn’t sleep very well last night.  I was up with her from about 2-4am, but I think it had more to do with her severe congestion.  She refuses to let go of that paci and breathe through her mouth.  Oh how I wish I could reason with a 6 month-old! 

Everyone else in the family is still healthy, which is a HUGE praise considering Travis’ class starts tonight.  Oh yeah…have I mentioned that my husband is now teaching a class at a university here in town?  I’m trying to get Owen to call him Professor.  More on that later.

Keeping our fingers crossed that the sickness is gone for good!  Thanks for the thoughts and prayers!

quarantined

The last few days haven’t gone as planned.  We were supposed to be in Mena, Arkansas at Travis’ 10 year high school reunion (which he planned, might I add).  It was going to be a great weekend of free babysitting (Nana and Bubba), lots of time with Travis’ high school friends, and a beautiful drive down Highway 44 looking at the beautiful fall colors. 

Instead, we did a lot of this:

Oh yeah, and a lot of avoiding being attacked by this:

And in case you didn’t fully grasp the size of the monstrosity that is attached to Max’s head, here’s another angle:

Okay, first things first.  Molly has swine flu.  It’s been a rough week.  She spiked a fever Tuesday afternoon after her nap.  The next morning it was up close to 103 so we went to the doctor.  They did the little nose swab test and, sure enough, she was diagnosed with H1N1.  I had been in the process of getting our stuff together to travel for 4 days to Arkansas for the reunion…all of that was put on hold.  I have never seen a baby as sick as Molly was that day, poor kid.  She was completely lethargic and wanted only be held.  Her breathing was pretty wheezy, which is why you see her hooked up to the nebulizer in the above picture (which we are now proud owners of, by the way).  The doctor was worried about the flu possibly progressing to pneumonia because of the congestion in her lungs.  She wanted to see Molly every day that she had a fever to make sure she was doing all right.  She also told us that Molly is the youngest baby she’s ever seen with the swine flu. (I was not surprised.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you will remember that my family has really bad luck with medical stuff.)  Anyway, the trip got cancelled and we’ve been to the doctor 4 times in the past week.  On Wednesday afternoon, the fever went away for about 24 hours and we were thrilled!  We started to toy with the idea of jumping in the car so that Travis could attend the reunion.  Then the fever came back in a bad way…and we’ve been confined to the house for a VERY LONG TIME. 

Poor Molly.  She’s pretty miserable.  This is day 6 of the fever.  I am starting to feel like it’s never going to go away.  She is also so congested that she can’t breathe through her nose at all (a really bad thing for a kid who is addicted to the pacifier).  She’s been awake screaming for at least 4 hours every night for the past 5 nights.  Travis and I feel like zombies.  We feel very blessed that no one else in the family has gotten it.  The pediatrician told me that if we make it though Sunday and no one  has gotten it, we should be in the clear.  We’re almost there.  I think I might cry if Owen wakes up from his nap with a  fever.  We just can’t take much more of this.

On to the dog…Tuesday afternoon (the same afternoon that Molly spiked a fever), Max refused to walk on his front left paw.  We’d noticed he’d been licking on his foot for about a month.  We hadn’t really paid much attention to it.  After a trip to the vet, it turns out he has a skin infection on his foot between his little paw pads (that’s definitely not the “official” name for them…but you know what I mean, right?).   The vet told us that the fastest way to heal the foot is to wear this astronaut helmet (again, not the official name, but we think he looks like he’s receiving signals from outer space).  Max is not a graceful dog to begin with, and the helmet makes it even worse.  We’re supposed to have him wear the helmet and take his antibiotics for 10 days…we’re on day 6.  4 more to go.

So anyway, that’s what’s been going on here.  It’s been a bit of a downer of a weekend.

thanks, nana!

We love Halloween clothes!  Thanks, Nana!

half a year

My baby girl is officially 6 months old!  I took her to the pediatrician today for her 6 month check-up.  She weighed in at 17 pounds, 2 ounces (75th percentile) and measured 26 3/4 inches (90th percentile).  Looks like she’s taking after her daddy in height!  For comparison’s sake, here’s a picture of her brother at 6 months:

Crazy resemblance, huh?  Her ears just stick out like a little elf, and his head is a LOT bigger.  Molly is also taking after her big brother by also having eczema.  Bummer.  As of today, I’ve switched over to soap-free cleanser and fragrance-free baby lotion.  No more smelling like a baby.  So sad.  I hate eczema. 

Here are some other things Molly’s been into lately:

*Rolling over.  She loves doing it and thinks she’s awesome when she does it. 

*Playing peek-a-boo.  This makes Molly do her big belly laugh…which I can’t get enough of.       

*Her big brother.  She thinks he is so cool.  She loves to watch him and he loves to try to play with her.     

*Being REALLY loud.  Molly loves to hear herself talk.  She has developed this very loud gurgly squeal.  It’s great.                                   

*Eating!  She loves to eat avocado, sweet potatoes, bananas, pears, butternut squash, and peas.  The only food she doesn’t like so far is apples.  Good track record so far!                                                                                                                                                                                           

Molly continues to be such a happy girl.  She loves people and gets so excited when people talk to her.  It’s not hard to make this girl smile!

Owen is 29 months old…and he’s been a big brother now for half a year.  He’s a great big brother.  I never would have imagined that he’d adapt so well.  The kid continues to surprise me!

Here are some things that Owen’s been into lately:

*He still LOVES Star Wars.  He can now sing the Star Wars theme song very well, and he loves to do it in public places.  It’s great.    

*He loves to go to school.  He talks about his teachers all the time.  He loves to tell me all the things he does at school, and he’s very proud of his art work.  I always hang his weekly project on the fridge, and whenever he walks by he says, “I do dat!”.                            

*We’re taking baby steps toward potty training.  So far he’s peed in the potty twice!  For Owen, potty training has to be totally on his terms.  If I act at all like I want him to use the potty, he freaks out and refuses to go near it.  That’s just the kind of kid he is.  For the next 2 months we’ll keep casually working on it.  The plan is to hit it hard during Christmas break when Travis is home for a while to help out.  Should be interesting.  I’m going to seminars and reading up on the subject in the meantime.  This kid likes to make things hard on me.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

*He loves mealtime!  He loves it so much that he likes to spend an hour eating every meal!  For a while this was okay.  I liked the fact that he was confined to a chair for that long.  Now it’s getting old.  We are late almost everywhere we go.  A bit frustrating for me.  I’ve concocted a plan to break him of this excruciatingly long mealtime routine we’ve got going on.  It’s simple really.  I set a timer for 20 minutes.  When the dinger dings, the meal is over.   Even if his food is still there, it’s time to be done.  So far it seems to be working.  We’re on day 2 of the timed meals, and tonight he actually finished eating BEFORE Travis and me!  This was huge.  This has never happened.  We’re making progress.         

                                                                                                                                                                           

Don’t you love the tough guy look?  He’s so not into taking pictures these days.  Notice how Shamu the whale has appeared in both pictures.  There’s a little story behind that.  Poor kid was up for about 3 hours last night screaming because he was having nightmares.  Finally we got it out of him that he dreamed about a pirate in a pumpkin patch by a gate (maybe something that he saw when we visited the pumpkin patch last weekend??).  We tried to put him back to bed 3 times and each time he’d be in there for a few minutes and then would start screaming again.  We did everything we could think of to calm him down…singing, praying, laying down with him, watching part of Cars to distract him, giving him happy dream ideas to replace the scary ones, and then finally the one that worked…Shamu.  The fourth time we tried to put Owen back to bed, we’d just finished praying with him that God would protect  him from the scary dreams.  He was still a bit weepy.  As a last ditch effort, I asked him if he’d like to sleep with Shamu.  I told him that Shamu was a big tough guy and could scare the bad guys away.  For some reason this did the trick.  Shamu slept on Owen’s pillow all night last night.  Today he woke up talking about how Shamu’s a “big tough guy”.  Shamu is on his pillow again tonight.  Whatever works, right?

That’s all for this month!!

off to pick the perfect pumpkin

Last Saturday we headed to Rombach’s Pumpkin Patch.  It was a beautiful fall day, so we bundled the kiddies up in their Halloween attire and got ready for many photo ops (because that’s really why we go to the pumpkin patch every year, isn’t it??).  Here’s Molly, all gussied up and ready to go:

And then there’s me with the kids.  Evidently I wasn’t feeling quite as festive as they were…no attempt to be Halloween-y on my part.

Once at the pumpkin patch, we immediately plopped the kids down in the middle of all the giant pumpkins.  Owen was not into posing:

Neither was Molly.  But we got this great shot of their profiles!  And I love they are both making the exact same expression and how this photo really accentuates Molly’s chubby cheeks:

They may not have wanted to pose for a picture, but I was determined to get a good one of me and the kids.  Well, at least one of us was looking at the camera…and two of us are even smiling!  I’ll call that a picture-taking success!

One more attempt…we’re both looking!  Yea!

With the first round of pictures done, we set off to enjoy some of the fun at Rombach’s.  Travis spent the majority of his time at the pumpkin patch chasing Owen as he ran around saying, “Daddy, yook at dis!”.  I had Molly in the bjorn…definitely the easier of the two jobs.  Here are my boys climbing on some kind of tree house something:

We tried really hard to get a picture of just Molly propped up by the pumpkins.  We got some great ones of Owen at that age.  I think the sun was a little bright on this particular day, because all the pictures of Molly were less than flattering.  Out of respect for my daughter, I’m refraining from posting them on the blog.  Instead I’ll let you enjoy this less than fantastic picture of our two kids as we attempted to get them to smile for the camera:

And finally, the purpose of the visit…the perfect pumpkin!  We found it!  It’s now sitting on our front porch with my other two pumpkins (that I got at Aldi for $2 each…it was hard for me to stomach spending $9 on a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch when the Aldi ones were just as pretty, but it’s all about the experience, right?).  Someday soon we’ll be carving this baby up.  Stay tuned…