Halloween 2011: The Full View

So here is the full pictorial of what we did this Halloween.  I hope you enjoy it!

The day before, we decided it was high time to carve the pumpkins that had been sitting on our front porch for weeks.  The kids did their part by inspecting all the votive candles.

And arranging them just so.  (Now that I look at the picture below, it kind of looks like Mollie's dolls o.d.'d on giant marshmallows.  Too cute!)

I was more than happy to do the dirty work of scooping out the pumpkin innards, but all of a sudden I noticed that the insides didn't look quite right.  As it turns out, one of the pumpkins was starting to rot on the bottom.  The smell was awful and I politely asked/demanded that my husband take over for me.  He obliged but soon understood why I had to bow out.

The kids looked on, unimpressed.

Bless his heart, that stuff was disgusting!

Baylor and Mollie apparently couldn't smell it (or didn't mind the stench) and had fun goofing around at the bar.

We finally got the whole of it scraped out ... yuck.  Luckily the second pumpkin was just fine, and both ended up looking really nice all lit up.  (Of course, do you think I got a picture of that?  *sigh*)

The next day, the kids were in a bit of a funk so I introduced them to Garfield's Halloween Adventure and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

After naps, my parents and sister came over to help hand out candy and enjoy the festivities, a real help to me since it was Bryson's class night.  Baylor was quite confused as to why we were going to give other kids any of this giant bowl of candy we had.

Then we had my mom play a game.  She closed her eyes and we put two kinds of candy in her hands to see if she could guess what they were.  She was surprisingly good at it.

Baylor actually did get a little upset about the candy having to go, but he calmed down soon enough.

Before the trick or treaters started arriving we scarfed down some pizza.

Then the kids got dressed, though neither wanted to.  Mollie was Olivia the pig, from the television show.

And Baylor was a cowboy just like he was last year.  Seriously, same costume!  It actually fit much better this year, so that was a welcome surprise.

Unfortunately, we had to bribe the little man to even get him dressed.

But he ended up really enjoying his first Sour Patch Kids straw, so I guess that was a plus.

Okay, it is kind of a weird holiday, getting your kids dressed up in bizarre clothes so they can go essentially beg for candy at strangers' doors.

But we did it anyway!  My dad came with us to help out, while Mom and Christine stayed back to hand out candy and stay warm.  We first went to my in-laws' house, then their neighbors' place, then our neighbors' place, and all the while Baylor was begging to go home.  I knew these people wanted to at least say hi to him, though, so I kind of forced him to trick or treat against his will.  But then, without any cause, he started LOVING it and wanted to go everywhere!  So that was awesome.  And, as usual, Mollie was game for whatever her brother had in mind.

They even let me snap a cute picture of them with Grandpa E!

When Mollie saw Baylor carrying his own bucket, she insisted she carry her bag all on her own, even though it was probably way too big for her to realistically handle.

She got a little distracted when she noticed that the moon was out, but she really did a great job keeping the bag from dragging on the ground.  (Which was important to me, since that was the bag I used to carry when I was a little girl.)

We hit every lit house on the sidewalked area of our neighborhood, then headed back home to warm up.  Oma and Aunt Christine were shocked and concerned at how cold Mollie was when we returned, and they promptly bundled her up in a blanket.

Of course, she didn't mind being cold and soon wanted to get down and inspect her candy like her brother was doing.

Sometimes you need to get really close to it to understand what you've got, you know?

Unfortunately, she didn't quite understand that you need to take the wrapper off before you try to consume the candy.

Baylor's favorite treat this year was a mini bag of microwave popcorn one house was handing out, and he was pretty excited to eat it once we got home.

Upset that she didn't get to partake in the popcorn (she's still just a little too young), Mollie decided to suck on Olivia's snout instead.

Once he'd finished his popcorn, Baylor actually helped hand out candy!

He was very precise about it all, counting out each piece for the trick or treaters.

Unfortunately, a group of high school boys dressed as skeletons and monsters scared him, so he ran back to the living room to join the rest of the group.  And, of course, to tell stories as animated as he possibly could be.

All in all it was a really fun night!  Hopefully the kids will enjoy it even more next year!

The Photo I Chose ...

Based on all the feedback I got on here and on facebook, I went and ordered a picture!

I hung it over the fireplace, with the kids' help of course.

It is a little small for the location, but it looks fantastic otherwise.  

Baylor loved it so much he actually jumped for joy!

Thank you all so much for all your help!  You guys have impeccable taste!

Outside with Oma

A few weeks ago the kids and I headed outside to enjoy a little time with Oma.  While Baylor was hesitant at first, we ended up having a really good time.  At first we walked around and looked at things.

But then my mom offered to bring out the wagon, and the kids were all over that.  Baylor decided that, while we were getting the wagon out, he would clean Aunt Christine's car with a wiffle ball bat.  She really appreciated this.

After exploring the property, the kids got to ride down the little hill in the backyard.

And Baylor occasionally even helped push his sister up the hill!  What a little helper!

We had a great time, but eventually we had to go inside.  Since she finally stopped moving, I was able to get a little picture of Mollie in her outdoor garb.  She looked a little bit of a hot mess, but overall the effect was adorable!

Hopefully the kids will still want to go outside now that the weather is getting much cooler.  Exploring nature can be so much fun!

Mealtime Fun!

The kids have been challenging lately, but it's moments like these that make it all so worth it.

Baylor always looks so relaxed when he gets lost in his own thoughts.

And Mollie is as silly as ever!  (Flexible, too!)

Sadly for her, she has not yet figured out how to take her shirt completely off yet; she usually gets it stuck in a shrug position and lets it go there.  Hey, at least her arms stay warm!

Mollie is actually pretty good with a fork and spoon, but for some reason yogurt never quite makes it into her mouth perfectly.

Baylor wanted me to take a picture of his belly, so I did.  (And yes, the kids were having "naked breakfast" as we like to call it.)

So sweet!

Much like his mama, Baylor hates having sticky hands.

Stab an apple with a fork, though, and all is right with the world!

Enjoy!

Jelly Bean Music Video!

Okay, so this is pretty amazing and I had to share ... yes, I know there have been a few music videos on here lately.





I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

ASL Music Videos!

While I am by no means "fluent" or even proficient at American Sign Language, I have always found it fascinating and have used it to help Baylor and Amalia when they weren't able to speak but had lots of ideas to convey.  I have a cousin (hi, Laura!) who is awesome at it, and when I found this on Huffington Post I thought she'd want to see it ... in case she already hadn't, of course.  Anyhow, I thought these were cool.  Enjoy!

The Kids These Days: 19 Months and 3 Years

Ah, the kids these days!  As it turns out, these are two crazy ages, full of discovery, blossoming, and boundary-testing.  *sigh*

But the fact remains, I have two amazing children who make every day an adventure.

Let's start with Baylor, shall we?  My little man is tall.  So tall, in fact, that he barely needs a step stool to wash his hands at the bathroom sink, he can reach all the buttons on the microwave (*sigh*), and he can reach almost everything on the counter just standing on the ground (*double sigh*).

However, though he looks like he could possibly be four, he is still not potty trained.  We've made more of a move in that direction in the last week or so (learning how to take clothes on and off, buying more big boy underwear, and spending much more time in said underwear), but I have a feeling we are a long way off from being totally potty trained.  I boldly declared when I bought a 100-count box of size 7 diapers for him that this was the last package of diapers I would be purchasing for the little man; I told people about it.  And now it looks like I will be eating my words.  So that's fun.

Baylor is awesome, though.  He has this crazy imagination, and most mornings he wakes up talking to himself and making up all sorts of stories with his stuffed animals and blankets.  Quite often, he'll come to me holding out his hands cupped together, telling me he has a baby animal of some sort in his hands, and will I hold it/feed it/kiss it/say hello to it?  He puts on this adorable little voice to go along with his "baby", and he always smiles this big smile.

As weird as it is to say this, Baylor can read.  Like, full-on read.  He is getting really good at sounding out words and has a large list of words that he can sight read (e.g., all the days of the week, months of the year, numbers, colors, lots of animals, lots of foods).  It is a little overwhelming at times for me, but I'm super proud of him and try to encourage this interest in reading as much as I can.

He is getting incredibly good at setting up his train tracks, both of his own design and of those provided by Melissa and Doug.  Oh, and did I mention he refers to each piece by the letter the instructions assigned them?  And that he seems to have memorized at least some of each illustrated design?  Yeah, his memory is insane.

In response to Sound of Music mania, I tried to steer the kiddos toward some new music in the car.  Enter the Beatles.  The Fab Four have been serenading us in the car for the last month or so, and Baylor has certainly developed a liking for them.  His favorite song is number 21 on our CD, which happens to be "Hey Jude".  He smiles whenever it comes on, though I think he really likes it because of the end when "all the friends sing together".  Thing is, for the longest time he thought a guy by the name of Hey Jude sang the song.  We've since corrected him (I think ...), but I believe he still thinks Penny Lane sings "Penny Lane".  Either way, he loves the Beatles and that's enough for me.

Inside, both the kids have taken a liking to the soundtrack to Bye Bye Birdie.  I was the one who introduced it to them - after initially trying the soundtrack to "Chicago", which as it turns out, is not overly kid-friendly - and they both ask for Bye Bye Birdie daily.  So we listen to it multiple times a day.  Which is probably why, at any given time of day, I have a Bye Bye Birdie song stuck in my head.  I love that CD but it might be the end of my sanity.  Hopefully we'll find a new favorite soon.

As usual, Baylor still loves clocks and elevators, though his emphasis lately has definitely been on the latter.

The other day, Baylor jumped for the first time ... ever!  And this past Saturday, he showed us that he has finally mastered this awesome "trick".

For reasons unknown to us, he is always asking people, both those he knows and those he doesn't, to tell him about their house.  He is particularly fascinated with basements, quite likely because he so rarely gets to go in ours.  (A fact I'm hoping to change in the very near future ...)  He also likes to hear stories he's witnessed or been a part of repeated over and over again.  His two favorites are the story of riding elevators on his birthday and the story of the time Mollie was really silly when my sister was babysitting, though the latter is - hands down - his current favorite and makes him giggle with his whole body.

Lately he's been embracing all of his three years and has been challenging what we ask of him; quite often if I tell him to do something, he'll respond, "And what will happen if I don't ________?"  Sometimes I tell him why, sometimes I tell him it's a rule, and sometimes I just tell him that he needs to listen to me.  *sigh*  It makes me wonder what Mollie is going to be like at three.

Hey, speaking of Mollie ...

The little lady of the house is changing rapidly these days.  She can say so many more words today than she could just a few weeks ago, and she's really starting to communicate well.  Miss Mollie calls Bryson "dada", me "mama", Baylor "boh" (likely for "brother" since she refers to Olivia's brother with the same word), and Oma "uh-mamama".  She can kind of say "Aunt Christine" but it more comes out "aut krs-t-t-t" and she never says it unless we ask her to.

Oh and does Mollie love her "boh" or what?!  She wants nothing more to be exactly like him, to do exactly what he's doing, and to be wherever he is.  Since he has started putting on and taking off his own clothes, she has decided it is high time for her to do this as well; lately the typical day at our house is having at least one if not both kids wandering around in only their diapers.  She wants to jump when he jumps, giggle when he giggles, and be all up in his business all the live-long day.  This creates a bit of drama between the kids at times, but overall they get along really well.  Baylor has even been pretty thoughtful with her.  For example, most mornings Mollie wakes up before he does so she is with me when I to go get him up and is very excited to see him.  Baylor, much like his dad, is not a morning person and likes to have his space first thing in the a.m., which isn't exactly compatible with Mollie's mission to play in his bed.  So, almost every morning this scene occurs, I stall her for a few minutes and then he graciously gets out of bed so she can get in.  Then he smiles because she is so happy ... and likely because he gets a little extra snuggle time with me.  (Until Mollie sees it and wedges herself in, of course.)

Amalia has taken quite a liking to her doll Adele, a little Corolle doll my mom bought for her soon after she was born.  She calls her "baby" and likes to pat her, rock her to sleep, and diaper her.  Yes, my little lady will often wander up to me and insist I help her diaper her doll.  Unfortunately, the only small diaper I saved was a size 2 so it goes up to Adele's armpits, but Mollie doesn't seem to care.  She's gotten so good at diapering that now I only have to get her doll situated and she can fasten it herself.  Oh, and she can unfasten it herself, too.  And that means she can also unfasten her own diaper herself.  Remember in the previous paragraph when I mentioned that both kids like to hang out in only their diapers?  Yeah, all this new-found independence is coming together in a really "awesome" way.  *sigh*

Though she is generally terrified of animals when she actually has the opportunity to interact with them, Mollie adores seeing animals from afar.  She has also gotten really good with animal noises; she can make the noise of a dog ("arf arf"), cat ("yeow yeow yeow"), snake ("hisssssss"), bee ("bzzzzzzzz"), horse ("nay nay"), cow ("moo"), bear/lion/tiger ("grrRRrr"), and sheep ("ba ba ba"), and for a pig she thinks she is making a noise but really she just scrunches up her nose.  She also tends to refer to animals by the noises they make.  But I tell ya, you bring her or Baylor near a dog, any dog, and they pretty much climbs up the walls to get away from it.  In response to this reaction, I have been taking them to our local pet store more frequently to see animals; they mostly have fish, typical small furry pets (mice, rats, hamsters, and the like), and reptiles, but the store has two large, not-for-sale, slow-as-molasses bulldogs, Stella and Bob, who wander around, greet guests, and nap.  Stella, in particular, is a real sweetie and lumbers over to say hi whenever we come in ... and, in doing so, she terrifies the kiddos.  *sigh*

If I were to describe my daughter in one word (though one word isn't nearly enough), it would most definitely be silly.  She is one silly little girl, always goofing around, always doing funny things, making funny faces, imitating adults and her brother in funny ways.  She flops down on any pile of pillows or blankets she can find, belly first, of course.  She loves to spin around in circles, getting totally dizzy in the process; last night she even upped the ante and spun around while riding an elevator!  Mollie's silly, she knows it, and she seems to embrace it.  And I love that about her!

I know I am biased, but I have the two most amazing kids ever.  I can't wait to see who they become as they grow up!