John David snores real loud

Sammy often wakes up before John David. When I ask him why he woke up..he will look at me and say that "John David snores real loud." I have never heard John David snore, so when I tell Sammy he doesn't he tells me "I can't sleep because John David is loud." I think it is funny to hear him say that.

Great Helpers

Emma is now drinking formula in a bottle during the day. So that frees up some of my time, and gives her brothers the ability to help and bond with their sister. Sammy loves to give her the bottle and does at least one bottle a day. He tells me he is a "great helper." Which he is, I must say that I am surprised that he stays still long enough to feed her the entire bottle. John David also helps with Emma's bottle. He was very excited to help last night. Carlos has even gotten into the habit of walking over and helping me hold the bottle when I feed her. I guess he wants to be part of the action. Emma is quite content with her brothers feeding her, as long as the leave the bottle in her mouth.

pretty in green

On Tuesday Emma was wearing a pink hair clip. She was in her swing and Carlos ketp looking at it. As soon as I went in to the kitchen, he took it off. When I came back in the living room he was trying to get it to stay on the top of his head...very cute. I asked him if he wanted me to put it on. He walked right over and gave it to me. I put the pink clip back in Emma's hair, and got a green one for him. He pulled it off a couple of times, but he kept coming back to me to put it on again. He eventually forget about it, and left it in his hair while he ate in his chair. With those curly locks he looked very cute with a green clip. I will put the picture in the album shortly.

eeeeese

Carlos loves to take pictures...I am sure you are asking how I know this for a fact. Well he now says "eeeese" anytime he sees me with the camera. It is quite cute. You just have to be careful to not confuse his "cheese" with his "please" because they sound very similar.

Pumpkin Patch

There was no school on Monday, so I decided to take the kids to Elgin to have some good ole fall fun. They got to decorate pumpkins, go on a hayride, and find their way through a haybale maze. Everyone had a great time, and there was minimal drama. John David wanted to bring home a big pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern, but there was no way to get all of them and a pumpkin to the car. I told him daddy would have to get one for us at the store. Now he is just asking when is daddy going to bring him his pumpkin. Click on the Oct 2008 photo link to see pictures from our outing.

John David the author

John David has definitely taking a liking to writing, and even drawing pictures. So he now writes his own stories, and draws a picture to go with the story. It is quite cute. Below you will find one of his stories as he wrote it....I will have to type in the extended version of the story when he is up to tell me the whole story.

WTTWALIONHHWAFF
ThOAMMEhOOGSNATW
AMFATNATHWHAA

Carlos got bumped to a big boy bed

With Emma taking over the crib, Carlos was moved to a twin size bed. This is the same bed John David used, and it matches all of the baby furniture so it goes great in that room. I am amazed and surprised that he has not figured out he can get up and down himself. The bed is against the wall on one side, and I have a rail on the other side. When he wakes up he just waits until I get him out, just like in the crib. The few days that he has not napped he has just played in his new bed. The first night he slept in his bed he fell asleep on the pillow. He looked really cute and grown-up at the same time. Overall this has been a great transistion, and both him and Emma will have lots of fun as they get older in their new room together.

Emma has a half birthday

So Emma is still growing...she is half a year old already. She is still tiny in size 3% for height and weight when compared to others her age, but she can do so much. She is almost sitting on her own, loves to play in the saucer and can push and roll around to get where she wants. She has the best laughs and loves to talk, she even wakes up talking. She reached other milestones with this half birthday.
She took a bath with brother Carlos for the first time. She was just fine with a toy or her paci in her mouth. She was tired, and Carlos was pushing her buttons by trying to crawl around her to get more toys in the tub.
She slept in a standard crib, with her cute bedding, for the first time. She actually slept through the night. That is not a consistent thing, but trust me it is nice the nights she sleeps through.
She is no longer sharing a room with mommy and daddy. Her new roomie is her big brother Carlos.
She also is now riding in her big girl carseat. Our baby is out of the baby carrier....she had not outgrown her seat, but she was not a huge fan of the carrier. Not to mention our carrier is about to expire...we've had it since John David. She is much happier in a roomier carseat.

This is the third time we come to this store!

That was Sammy's reaction to all our trips to Home Depot. We went three times in three days.
Trip 1
The first day we went to get the paint....and that was not very successful. I picked "Collegiate Yellow," and who knew that was going to be brighter than the bedding and probably even brighter than TinkerBell. I had my doubts as the guy put the color on the lid, but I didn't have the bedding on me, so I figured I would wait to check it at home.
Trip 2
I went to ask them to tweak the color so it would be lighter and less bright. Thanks to the help of a great lady at the paint counter we went home with "Evocative Sunlight." I was all excited and ready to paint.
Trip 3
Needed to buy more Kilz to finish coating the ceiling so the green would not show through the yellow. I used almost 3 gallons...crazy, but that TinkerBell was not going to go easily. this is the day that Sammy let me know he had kept track of how many times we had come to the Home Depot. He told me I didn't need to buy anymore yellow paint, because he had some at his house, and his friend could bring it to me.

Daddy's gone...farewell to Tinkerbell

That is what John David and Sammy say when JP goes to a conference. It was definitely different flying solo with 4 kids for 4 days...but we all survived and had some fun. It was quite obvious every morning that John David missed his daddy. Normally JP takes hime to school in the morning, and he walks him all the way inside the school. With me getting four kids out of the house at 7:15 there was no way I could also unload everyone, so I just dropped him off at the front porch of the school. Every morning he asked if daddy was going to take him inside when he came back.
Anybody who knows me knows that I pick the times that JP is away to get things done. That way he can't give me the "you are crazy look." I mean what husband would agree to paint in the middle of the week. Our weekends are always full of other things, so we just never got around to do things at home. So the project for this trip was to paint Carlos' room so it could become Carlos and Emma's room. I was very thankful to have Sharmila come over two days to help me move the project along. We started thursday around eight and it was done early saturday morning. We bid farewell to "Tinkerbell Green" and said hello to "Evocative Sunlight." I know a lot of you will miss what I commonly referred to as the "Mint Chocolate Chip without the Chip" room. However Emma and Carlos are quite happy in their new room.