Octoberfest

This will be the month of October in a nut shell.

1. I turned 29. Yay. Jeremy gave me by far the most awesome birthday card ever. Aaaaand he stayed home from work so I could go shopping all day...it was so much fun!

2. JJ had his 6 month check up. 24.7lbs 28inches, healthy, strong and cute as a button!

3. I started a baby class with JJ though the local community college- it's a class I took with the girls too, just a fun way to have some one on one time with the little man.

4. Eva's Jog-a-Thon! Elle ran 2 laps with Eva and would have done more but I made her stop, she had crocs on for crying out loud! Eva did 8 laps this year...she could have done more but I kept having her take water breaks...rookie mistake, she did 10 laps last year when daddy was coaching her, oops. She wanted to do 12 laps and was a little disappointed that she didn't but she still had a lot of fun and I'm so proud of how athletic she is and strives to be healthy.

4. Pumpkin patch family trip.

5. Carving of said pumpkins

6. Tried out some new crock pot recipes via pinterest, they were all so good and a few will become some new staples.

Onto the pictures!

Baked Potato Soup- it was so easy!

Bacon, Chicken, Ranch Mac

JJ got a new toy!

Our Three Little Piggies

JJ hanging out in the corn box.

I was experimenting with sun flare after I read a little tutorial on it, what do you think?

I tried to get Jeremy to take a picture of me with the same effect.

Eva getting ready for her jog-a-thon.

And they're off!

Eva's new 2nd grade teacher is the one directly behind her and her new

principal is there cheering and running along.

He's actually one of our family friends, a great family that we love to be around

and have known the longest since moving back to Corvallis,

he's known Eva since she was 4 months old! It's fun to have

a familiar face at school with a principal that we really know!

Aren't they the cutest?! They were holding hands for part of their run together!

Done! Phew!



I got the girls these cute headbands with ears!

And then I got Elle a top that coordinated and Eva the leggings that coordinated.

Aren't they so cute?!

It's carving time!

We didn't carve pumpkins last year and I felt sort of guilty

(even though the kids never noticed)

So I wanted to make sure we let them carve to their hearts content this year.

We only had two casualties...both were cuts, both were Elle.

We had JJ try on one of my Halloween wigs!

The best family picture of the night.

Jeremy and I went to an adults only Halloween party the other night.

Anyone know who we are?

And finally JJ in some new jammies courtesy of grandma and grandpa Bonham.

Next up Halloween, wish me good luck!

Farewell October, it was exciting and very fast!

Here's to a lingering November.



JJ's and old fogey baby

Can you believe JJ is 6 months old? Yeah, me either. I think he's considered and "older" baby now. :(  
He has 5 teeth now! He's starting to grab his toes...who knew he could even reach them (or see them)?!
I don't think he's anywhere close to crawling...at all. His sleeping has been a little rough lately and I think it's from all the teething and he had a little tiny cold for about a week...he still sounds like a hog when he's nursing. But I can't complain too much, with all the extra nursing I've lost 2lbs! Woot, woot!

This is right before the crying started.

Is that not the cutest thing you've ever seen? Don't you just want to hold him and kiss his fat little cheeks?

Here's the best close up of all his new teeth. You can see his front right gum is broken through, I took this two nights ago and the tooth is already popped down more.

After this I picked him up (I swear) and cuddled him and gave him kisses!
He has his 6 month appt next week (on my birthday...oh how the mighty have fallen) and we'll see what his stats are. Our guess at home is a whopping 24lbs...any other guesses out there?

Project Runway

P.R. is one of my favorite shows- ever. In every season they do this "look into the past" and they show the designers as kids. It's always so cute and you can tell from an early age that they had an eye for style.

That's why I've been trying to take more pictures of Elle and her outfits. I can totally see her on P.R. someday. I'm going to try and put up some pictures of her once a week in her choices of clothes.
Her newest "piece" is a pair of Eva's tights that are waaaaay too long for her legs but she's obsessed with them. This is how she's been wearing them:
p.s. these are all her own poses

Elle is her own girl, she always has been. I LOVE that she loves shopping and I've really enjoyed watching her style develop over the years. From her hair down to her shoes she picks everything and is always extremely specific on how she wants me to do her hair...so if you see her with one random tiny ponytail in the back of her head...it's is purposeful and planned.

Helping Hands

The girls always want to help with JJ. It's been hard for me to let them. Mostly because I don't want to be one of those moms that asks their kids to do tons of things...so much so that they aren't doing kid things anymore. I'm realizing that there are certain things that they really want to do at this age and honestly there are things they should be doing (like chores).
It's been hard for me to get organized enough to have a regular schedule of things. I'm still getting use to the fact that I have a school age child and next year I'll have 2 kids in school! Yikes.

I'm also learning that when they ask to do something I need to just say "yes" and then they will have the opportunity to serve, to learn from mistakes and it makes it easier on me (best part)!

The other night Eva asked to feed JJ, a regular occurrence and I said, "Yes!"

I tired to snap some pictures of her feeding him, she did such a great job, but of course once I got the camera out JJ was mesmerized by it and wasn't really paying attention to Eva anymore...plus I think he was getting full!
Here are some pictures of our youngest and our oldest bonding!

Cute, right?
She did a really great job and she's learning from any "mistakes" like last week when she got too close and JJ kicked the bowl out of her hand...it got all over her pants and all over the carpet...you better believe she holds onto the bowl better and doesn't get as close to him now. Lesson learned.
Look at me, I'm growing up by letting my kids grow up...it's hard!

Stuff

Elle calls a forehead a "head board." We will be dilating Elle's eye again for the next three months to try and correct the vision in her left eye. The eye Dr. suggested putting the drops in at night after she falls asleep, I tried it last night...it totally worked and was equally hilarious and a little sad. But mostly I was trying not to laugh at her reaction. Luckily with one dilated eye she wants to wear her glasses...which is exactly the desired effect to correct her vision.
Elle also started preschool and doesn't like that it's only an hour and a half and that she can't bring her lunch yet. She currently likes to wear all of her tops backwards and usually has either leggings, shorts or jeans that are too short under some type of tulle or petti skirt.

Eva likes to wear shorts at all times. She does not like plain t-shirts. She currently wears this ugly spider velcro bracelet all the time...except to church, her choice. She started a drawing class after school this week and she loves it. Second grade is currently "totally awesome and I never want to leave!" We've been giving Eva more responsibilities and she's done them all very well. Jeremy and I can't believe how old she's getting, I'm excited...Jeremy's currently googling "best guns to scare boys away from my daughter" we all handle it in our own way.

Said spider bracelet is in the picture below:

JJ is now 5.5 months old. He sleeps through the night. He likes to be warm when he sleeps, I've experimented on him and he seems to sleep longer when he wears his fleece jammies, which is good because those are the only ones that he fits into. He's going through that stage where he wants to hold things and explore them but then drops them 5 seconds later and then cries till you hand it back to him...luckily I have TWO older girls who looooove to keep handing crap back to him. He still has two teeth. He likes eating solids...whenever I get around to it. He's very quiet...until he's not quiet. He never really opens his throat when he cries...think about how deaf people talk...that's how JJ cries or whines. He's most ticklish in his moobie region. I can't hold him on one arm for too long because my muscles start to shake and when I nurse him sometimes my hand goes numb. Jeremy and I decided that he's just like Eva as a baby but with Elle's face. I love him.

These pictures of the girls are from the other night when they were in charge of dinner, they made pancakes and cooked for us. It was so awesome eating first...it was warm! They did a great job, Elle did get a little burn but really, I think we all kind of assumed someone was going to end up getting burned, luckily that didn't deter her at all and she just learned not to touch a hot pan (funny, I could have swore I said that about a thousand times before they got started but we all know mom only talks to hear herself talk, right?)