Halloween-palooza.

We ventured into the city for Halloween-palooza at our friend's house. She graciously hosts Halloween-palooza each year. They live in a three bedroom condo in the city and happily have all of us over to terrorize their place. This year there were 12 kids under the age of 4 and six moms.  There was a dad and grandpa thrown in there but they were so overwhelmed by the chaos they didn't stick around long.  It was rather controlled chaos this year. It's amazing how you become accustomed to insanity being the norm.  

We have a local email that comes out with stuff people are selling for kids and adults. I had been looking for a costume for Mr. Man and came across a lady selling a dinosaur/dragon and a kangaroo (size 2-4T) and figured for $20 we would definitely use them over the next few years.  Miss M instantly became obsessed with the kangaroo costume and ditched the idea of being a bear for the third year in a row.  It's possible Mr. Man will be a bear this year as he hate the dragon outfit.  

On Friday I was perusing the emails again (they come all the time) to stall getting out of bed.  I saw someone selling a kangaroo for 0-3 months.  It's been difficult finding costumes for babies b/c they seem to be 0-6 months or 6-12 months.  I thought it was only appropriate to spend a few dollars and make Miss Cate the Joey to Miss M's Kangaroo.

She slept through it all. 

 There's the kangaroo.

 He does not like the dino/dragon costume.

 Not one bit.

 There they all are.  Miss Cate blends into Miss M and Mr. Man since they are all a lovely shade of brown.  There's a burger on the loose in the right hand corner and her corresponding french fries in the left corner (Tadgh and Niamh) are not impressed with their costumes. It was fantastic.

This week.

We found these fancy pumpkin decorating kits at Target when we were trying to kill time on Tuesday when the cleaning lady was here! Miss M loves Minnie Mouse and Andrew loves not dealing with carving pumpkins. It's a win for everyone. 

Can we talk about her hair - good grief - I wish it would just grow already b/c it's out of control. Seriously I don't even know what it wants to do.  I think she might find herself getting a haircut this weekend. Although they always ask me what I want done with it. I just want it cut people. It's not that difficult and isn't it your job to figure out what to do with it and not mine. 

 Ahh. Hello.

 Good-night.

 Miss M wanted to take pictures of her little sister. Mr. Man just wants to pet her.

Just laying down peacefully. She doesn't get to do that much due to the chaos that ensures all day long.

 Group shot.

Lost Cause

The kid is a disaster. 

He's a lost cause. 

He needs a helmet and a padded room.

All of his accidents happen so fast I don't even really know what he falls on/over.  

On Tuesday we came home from running errands/playing outside while the cleaning lady was here and on our way in the door he tripped over his own feet (b/c the house was clean - hence cleaning lady).  On his way down he hit/slammed his head into the wooden steps.  He got an immediate goose egg. It was huge.  It had me (and the cleaning lady) pretty freaked out. We tried to put ice on it to no avail.  I ended up calling the pediatrician b/c I don't know if it's normal for kids to hit their head so much and have it swell up so big and so quickly.  Apparently it is. The doctor just said to come in to the office after an hour if he wasn't acting normal.  

 Within a half hour he was back to normal.

He copied his sister and climbed into the tower and then onto the counter.  I caught him trying to make a cup of coffee b/c Andrew has him make coffee with him most mornings. Miss M had a paper cup she was drinking water out of and as she showed me I asked her where she got it. She responded with the cabinet which I knew the answer upon asking. I asked her what her brother was doing b/c I heard noises I didn't really like hearing. She responded with "being naughty". Well she always thinks he's being naughty so after walking into the kitchen I grabbed him off the counter and moved the tower. He inevitably moved it back and screamed at me for quite some time. He prefers to get his way.

 The next day (Today - Wednesday) he was coming down the stairs to the living room. He made it down the carpeted stairs and after getting on the landing safely he tried to walk down the two wooden stairs (same two he ran into yesterday) by himself. He face planted onto the floor. I didn't see this happen but I can only imagine that this is how it went down since I found him on his face on the floor. I didn't need to ask him where he got hurt b/c once again he got a goose egg within seconds. I am not going to be able to take him in public pretty soon.  The sample woman at Costco already commented on his bruise Tuesday.

He must have been feeling pretty bad/sad/tired because he grabbed Miss Cate's blanket to chew on when usually he finds it on the ground and wants you to give it to her.

He seriously needs a padded room and a helmet until he gets control of his legs or the size of his head catches up with the rest of his body.

Miss M vs Miss Cate

There are so many people who think Miss Cate looks just like her siblings. I am not sure. There are times she reminds me of the other ones when they were babies but she's so much smaller than the other two that there are times when it's difficult to see them. 

I got out the baby picture of Miss M from when she was 5 weeks old. And here she is 3.5 years later.   

Here is Miss Cate at 6 weeks old compared to Miss M at 5 weeks old.  They don't look as much alike as I thought they might. Miss M's eyes are completely different than Miss Cate's.

 I do think they have the same nose and mouth/chin.

It's hard to believe Miss M was so little just a few short years ago.  In a few short years, Miss Cate will be 3 years old and talking all the time and driving me crazy.

The children.

Around six weeks old Miss Cate started smiling a little bit. She is stretching out more (when she's safe from her brother). She's still sleeping alright - I will give her a pass on waking up every three hours most nights since she's still considered a newborn.  

Miss M likes to hold her and help feed her. Mr. Man likes to attack her.  He was doing so good at being gentle and just hurting her accidentally when he wasn't aware of his feet or hands when he was rolling around or getting up. He's getting a little abusive these days. It's so frustrating. He loves nothing more than to hit her in the head and laugh and then I tell him no and he just does it again and harder.

He loves nothing more than to drive people crazy. He irritates the hell out of Miss M when he takes her toys and runs away. She starts crying. He starts laughing an evil laugh.  It's the same type of behavior/response with Miss Cate. I try to tell Miss M not to get excited b/c that's what he wants. He wants her to get excited and all worked up. I could try to not get excited about him whacking Miss Cate but it's hard not to get excited when he's abusing a human rather than just stealing a toy.

He's so naughty. 

If he sees her bottles laying around (or her pacifiers) he loves to grab them and try to shove them in her mouth. I wasn't sure if he would try to drink it and sure enough the day came when he grabbed it and shoved it in his mouth. Gross.  The idea of drinking formula makes me sick to my stomach. It stinks so bad. I think he rather just wants to chew on the nipple and ruin them like he does his own bottles/sippy cups.

Isn't he so handsome in his hat. I think it's because he has such a large round head. He can thank me for that trait. Miss M has a large round head too. She can thank me also since she too looks good in a ball hat.

You're welcome children.

Don't say I never gave you anything.

During each Saturday's farmers market an organization makes and sells donuts to earn money.  This past Saturday was our preschools turn to make donuts. I was going to buy out but then got suckered in to volunteering. Well...Andrew had the privilege of volunteering. I stayed with the children. I wanted to go to the market and buy donuts but also some vegetables b/c Miss M requested veggie spaghetti for dinner and I wanted her to pick out some veggies.

Mr. Man spotted his dad at the donut station and lost his marbles. I had to get him back in the stroller and home so I bought some gourds to weigh him down in the stroller. It worked. He didn't move until we got home. I don't know why exactly I didn't just put the safety straps around him.  Clearly that would have been smarter/easier.

Pumpkin Patch 2014 round 2

We decided to hit up a different pumpkin patch yesterday with our friends/neighbors.  

Again, Miss Cate slept for most of our trip.  She generally looked like this picture.

I hated this pumpkin patch.  I am glad we tried it but we won't be going back for so many reasons.  We will stick to our regular patch.

This place had a lot of rides which resulted in standing in a lot of long lines. Mr. Man liked the train. Miss M liked it too but I couldn't get a picture of her bc she was in the front engine car.

Miss M wanted to ride the honey pots (think tea cups).  Mr. Man had a meltdown right before the ride started but calmed down and enjoyed it once it started.

 By the end of the night he was dragging his blankie and chugging his milk.  His two favorite things.

Hawkeye Saturday

In preparation of Hawkeye Saturday Miss M and Janan made black and gold Jello jigglers.  The kids actually ate the Jello where normally when I make it it just gets thrown away.

 There were lots of crafts done.

 Girl loves crafts.

A picture with everyone in their Hawkeye gear.  Even Miss Cate has a Hawkeye shirt thanks to Aunt Nessie

Pumpkin Patch 2014

Aunt Janan came to visit and help out last week since Andrew was supposed to travel for work. One day we let Miss M play hookie from school and we went to the pumpkin patch.  We weren't able to leave until closer to noon b/c Miss Cate had her one month doctors appointment. It had the potential to be a disaster b/c leaving lined up with Mr. Man's nap schedule and the guy needs his sleep. 

Miss M had a blast. She ran from one thing to the next.  She usually doesn't get too far away from me but there were times at the pumpkin patch that I was afraid I had lost her. We were really fortunate that there was no one at the pumpkin patch so the kids could just run all over without any issue. 

She enjoyed all the cut outs

 Dora.

She was so excited to ride a pony. Remember, she thinks she's a horse.  I was a little concerned that after I bought the ticket she would get scared and not want to ride. Nope. She was pumped. She even wanted to ride the camel. We didn't get that daring.

 Mr. Man rode the pony too. He wasn't thrilled but he didn't fuss about it.

 She was so happy.

We were able to get up close and personal with the giraffes. The kids liked the giraffes from a distance.  They didn't want anything to do with feeding them the carrots.

We bought more carrots and all of a sudden Miss M wanted to feed every animal in sight.  She put her carrots on the ground so she could get them and put them on the spoon.

 Putting the carrots on the spoon

 Feeding the animals.  Mr. Man liked them from a distance.  He's offering the animal his carrot.

 He's offering the animal his carrot. I really don't remember him getting that close.

We weren't out of the parking lot and he crashed and snored the whole way home.  He was amazing considering he didn't get his nap on time and we forgot his blanket.

There were no pictures of Miss Cate b/c she was so awesome and slept in the sling the entire time.