Googly Eyes

Little googly eyes have become my nemesis.  Alexander's babysitter has the kids glue eyes on everything that they make.  I think that they are putting more eyes on things this year than ever before.  Then, when Alexander brings his school work home on Friday, he proceeds to take all of the eyes off of his projects.  I stand there and tell him to put the eyes in the trash can, but do you think that happens?  Nope!  Then I spend tons of time looking for teeny, tiny eyes on the floor and swiffering for hopefully find them.  Of course, I never find them all, but we have a baby who is great at it.  Today, I found her with one of them in her mouth.  Thank God I caught it in time.  I told Alexander to stop taking the eyes off of his pictures or I'm going to tell his teacher that he isn't allowed to have eyes on his work.  I think maybe they need to draw eyes instead of gluing them on. 

We Are Prepared...I Think

We spent our weekend preparing for Hurricane Sandy.  It is supposed to be a monster storm.  We went to Target yesterday and got stocked up on canned goods, batteries, flashlights, and water.  Then we went home and spent the rest of the day raking and bagging leaves.  My dad asked me why we were doing all of that work when the storm could blow them away.  We decided to bag up the leaves so that they won't clog our drains.  We ended up bagging about 30 bags of leaves and we still have some left on the trees.  We also did a lot of laundry because if we lose power, it may be awhile before we can wash our clothes.

Today, we decided to take a trip to the farmer's market for apples.  It may be our last chance to get farmer's market apples.  Then we went to the grocery store to pick up a few more supplies.  We have the basement set up and ready for us to spend the day there on Tuesday.  Our biggest fear is that a tree is going to fall on our house.  (If you've been to our house, you know that it is a real fear!  We have over 16 tall trees in our yard.)

My hope is that this storm will not be as bad as they are predicting.  Hopefully we have done enough to be ready for it!

Here are some pictures of our leaf raking adventure yesterday!

Pumpkin Patch and Randomness

It has been completely crazy around our house during the last few weeks.  We have been constantly running to different events.  I feel like I haven't had any time at home until today.  So, of course, our house has suffered because of this, but, OH WELL!  I choose to spend my time with my kids and I will clean the house when I can, but please don't judge me!

Last weekend, we took a trip to the local pumpkin patch.  It is a small nursery right by our house and they bring out bouncy houses and fun activities every year.  Every year at the end of September, Batman shows up there!  It is exciting!  The best part about it is that we only had to pay for Alexander.  We  usually go to the big pumpkin patch that charges everyone to get in and we just couldn't afford it this year.  Luckily, Alexander loves going to the local place and couldn't wait to see Batman again.

He had tons of fun and we took a lot of pictures.  Even Julia got in on the action at one of the bouncy houses and a rocking horse.  She thought it was a fun trip too! 

The funniest part was that he didn't even ask us to buy him a pumpkin.  When I had told him that we could go to a pumpkin patch for him to get a pumpkin, he told me that he wasn't getting his pumpking there.  He was going to get his pumpkin at Lowes.  When he told me that, I laughed!  We ended up buying his pumpkin at Home Depot, but he was happy with it.

This past week was really crazy.  I took my third graders on a field trip and we didn't get home until 8:00pm.  We had some tired kids and teachers.  Luckily it was a really great trip, but I don't want to go on it again next year unless we charter buses.  Waiting for the school buses to come back took too long.

Then this weekend, we went to two birthday parties.  The kids had a great time, but Alexander was really worn out.  He ended up falling asleep on the couch this afternoon.  All in all, the last few weeks have been a whirlwind.  Hopefully, I can catch up on housework and school work during the next couple of weeks!

First Time for Everything

We have had a week full of firsts.  Alexander passed his egg challenge on Tuesday!  That was a very exciting day.  He is now cleared by the doctor to eat anything he wants.  We had to celebrate by getting a real cupcake from a bakery.  It looked a lot better than the ones that I make that have tofu in them instead of egg.

 He also ate stuffed shells for the first time and loved them.  He got to eat wings in a restaurant and this weekend, we went to IHOP for the first time in about 2 years.  He got a pancake to eat.  He ate all of it and even ate some of my breakfast.  It was the first time that we were able to share our food with him.

 Then we went to the grocery store and he got his first ever bakery cookie.  Overall, those were some great "firsts" for him.  He has been a real trooper throughout the last few years.  I don't think he has every complained about not being able to eat something.  Now he has everything available to him and I couldn't be happier for him.

8 Months Old

Julia turned 8 months old on September 24.  I can't believe how fast the time is going, yet it is hard to remember what it was like before she was born.  She is still growing super fast.  I think she weighs around 22 pounds and we estimated that she is around 26 inches tall.  We won't know for sure how big she is until Halloween, when she goes to the doctor again. 

She has the greatest personality.  She is always happy and loves to play with her brother.  She is a tough little girl too.  Alexander can get pretty rough with her and she never cries.  She just laughs and laughs when they are together.  It melts my heart.  I told her babysitter that she is a rough baby and she told me that that is the biggest understatement ever.  Julia isn't allowed to play with  the other baby because she is too rough.

She is starting to enjoy food more.  She loves baby cereal and yogurt.  We are still working to get her to enjoy the fruits and vegetables.  She hates jars of baby food.  She likes the homemade stuff better.  She still won't take milk from a bottle or a cup.  She will only eat from me, which means that she eats in the morning, before bed, and in the middle of the night.  We taught her how to drink from a straw a couple of weeks ago, so she drinks water in restaurants in a kid's cup.

She is on the move constantly.  She is crawling all over the house and getting into everything.  She also crawls somewhere, then immediately pulls up on whatever it is.  She really wants to walk, so I think she is going to walk early.

She also has 6 teeth now.  We started giving her some food that she can chew because she has so many teeth.

We really couldn't be luckier.  We have really great kids!

Crazy Day

I wanted to put pictures in this post, but something is not working with that, so here is our story without pictures.

On Saturday, we took a day trip to the beach.  I thought we were pretty crazy to attempt such a trip, but it actually worked out.  We left at a little after six and reached the beach at around 9:30.  We went to breakfast at an awesome restaurant and got crepes with fruit and chantilly cream.  Even Alexander got to enjoy the fruit and cream!  Then we hit the beach.  It was a perfect beach day.  It was 78 degrees and sunny.  However, the water was frigid.  I couldn't even stand to put my feet in it.  Alexander didn't think it was that cold though and he spent about 15 minutes playing in the ocean.  He was cold when he finished playing though.  We told him to play in the sand to dry off and he had a great time playing with his sand toys.  Then he went on a seashell hunt.  He brought about 20 shells home with him.  At that point we had to leave the beach because the wind was blowing so hard that we were getting exfoliated by the sand.

We decided to walk the boardwalk for awhile and visit some arcades.  Before we could do that, someone told us that they were giving away free kites, so of couse we had to get a free kite for Alexander.  When he got to the people giving them away, he had a choice of pink or purple.  I guess all of the other colors were gone by then.  He didn't care though.  He chose purple and we went onto the beach to try flying it.  It was a great kite day and his kite took off.  He loved flying it and was so excited.

Then we started walking again and went to an arcade.  Alexander got a couple of prizes.  At this point, both kids were really tired, so they took naps in their stroller and we started walking back to the car.

We went to Philips Crab House for dinner and had crab legs, shrimp, and tons of other seafood from their buffet.  Then we left the beach and went home.  We got home at around 9:30 and both kids were asleep.  We transferred them to their beds and then we went to bed.  All in all, it was a really great day!

Random Thoughts

• I have not had enough time to write lately.  School has started and I am so tired.
• Julia is getting more teeth.  She already has 4 and I can feel 2 more popping through.  It explains why we went from getting up once during the night to 3 times.  I can't believe that she is going to have 6 teeth before she is 8 months old.  Alexander didn't have any teeth until he was 8 months.  She will be able to eat real food soon!
• We raised the training wheels on Alexander's bike this week.  He is getting so big!  When he talks to us, he sounds so grown up.  Time needs to slow down a little bit!
• Pumping at work feels so pointless.  Julia isn't eating milk at daycare and I end up freezing most of the pumped milk.  However, I have to keep pumping because she does eat on weekends, so I need to keep my supply going.  My freezers are overflowing, but I can't bear to throw any milk away.  It feels so wasteful to throw it away. 
• Julia is standing all the time now.  Again, time needs to slow down!
• Now I need to get tons of school work done.  It is never ending!