Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween has just come to a close (although we are still hoping for some kids to come take the rest of our candy!). Ryan had a great time tonight. He loved running from house to house and trying to determine if people were home or not (no home!). He would ring the door bell and immediately knock - at the first house he opened the door! Ryan couldn't say trick or treat or even thank you, but he would leave saying 'no more' and 'bye'. We now have more suckers than we will ever eat. Emma dressed up as Ryan's cow and rode in the wagon until she got too cold and made me carry her. She seemed to enjoy the ride. So here are some pictures.

Over the past week, we've had so much to do. Last Friday, we picked Kris's cousin Doug up from the Dayton airport. The round trip took 5 hours! That included lunch, but we were gone for an awfully long time. He came in to go to the Penn State-Ohio State football game. They had a great time, amplified by the fact that Penn State won. While they were out, the kids and I attended Jackson McDonalds' first birthday party at Benton Farms. The kids got to pet some animals, go for a hayride and pick out pumpkins. They had a great time, which would have been better if Emma hadn't pooped out of her clothes during the 10 minute drive there. I usually have a extra set of clothes in the car, but had just reminded myself that morning that I need to change to winter clothes. So all I had was an extra onsie, she would have froze!

Monday, we drove Doug back to the airport and started our very busy week. We had to go shopping to get Ryan a heavier coat, we played outside in the wagon. Emma loved having Ryan pull her around. On Monday, I had my second photography class. Emma was not having a good day and fell asleep on her toy, as you can see!

Emma also had her 6 month doctors appointment this week. She did great considering she's been battling a cold, we found out she had an ear infection, she fell off the exam table (the nurse mostly caught her and she fell on her butt) and she got 3 shots. It was a tough day. But she's growing wonderfully and they weren't too worried about her.

Halloween Season

Last weekend, Kris had his 15 year high school reunion. I didn't really want to travel the 8 hours on Friday night and then turn around and do it again on Sunday with the kids. So instead of being home alone (again) I took them to Michigan (only 5 hours and we could leave on Thursday). The kids did pretty good on the trip. Emma only cried for 45 minutes straight after her bedtime, but all was well. One of the reasons we decided to go was because a friend of mine was having a charity event, raising money for the American Cancer Society. With a donation, you would receive a 15 minute photo session with her. So I took the kids in their Halloween costumes. Above and below are the pictures that Beth posted on her website (bethmerritt.com). The pictures turned out so cute!

While at my parents, we took the kids to the apple orchard for some cider and donuts. Ryan loved both and had a great time feeding the goats and walking through the orchard. Emma was lunging after any and all food. My dad had brought us some hamburgers because we missed lunch and Emma was all over the bun. It was very funny.

Since then its been a busy week. I took a two part class on photography this Monday (and next), which was great to finally learn what some of the things on my camera are for. Kris got to put both kids to bed and said that Emma cried for about an hour until bedtime and cried through her bottle. But she went to bed. For a few days she was getting up only once, but the last two nights has been up at least twice. So much for getting better.

I started giving Emma apples in the mesh bag feeder. She thought it was pretty good yesterday. Today, I tried pears, but she didn't like them as much. She is loving being able to sit at her toy and play. She's still doing the army crawl, but she gets where she needs to go.

Ryan has his first field trip today. They went to Benton Farms. We weren't exactly sure what they would do. But he brought home a pumpkin that he says he picked. He also said he petted goats and sheep, but no cows. He did say he had fun though. I would have went, but siblings aren't allowed, not to mention we are going this weekend to the same place for a birthday party. He's been doing great lately at home. Not so much whining, but more playing nicely. On a good note, he did poop in the potty when we got home on Sunday, but hasn't done it since. He'll pee but isn't good about telling us or wanting to stop what he's doing to go.

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One more note about me. I accomplished my goal. I lost all the baby weight I gained with Emma before she hit 6 months old. She will be 6 months on Monday and this past Monday I was 1 lb below where I was when I found out I was pregnant with her.

Oh what a time!

Ryan has been on fall break from school since last Wednesday. I'm already starting to be one of those parents who can't stand holidays and summer break. He's only been in school for a few weeks, but I really don't know how I got anything done when he was home. Of course, at that time, he wasn't screaming 'play' at me every second of the day. In fact he is calling it to me right now, 20 minutes after I put him to bed!

So here is what we've been up to. Kris bought a new lawn mower. It was his first (and he hopes his last) since we were using the one we confiscated from the trailer when we sold it. My grandmother says our old one was about 30 years old.

Ryan has been busy playing in the pile of rocks near our house that is there for the house they are building. He loves to try to scale it (the helmet is because he was riding his bike first). He has been enjoying riding his bike and in general making me 'play' with whatever floats his boat at the moment. We went swimming at the gym yesterday (even though we were there an hour before they allow kids in). He went back to school today and I was thankful.

Emma has been working on her sitting. She's doing very well at it and is enjoying the ability to play with toys at a different angle. She's starting to enjoy eating baby food as well. She's trying to get those fruit puffs in her mouth, but can't quite get it yet (of course once she gets it there she is unsure of what to do with it). She's working on sorting out her nap schedule. Today, she fell asleep in the middle of the living room while I was getting dinner ready. I had put her down to play and went to get her and found her asleep. Too cute. Mostly, she's good at going with the flow.

Here are two other pictures. One is Emma in the bath seat my mom let our borrow. She likes splashing in the water. The other is Ryan wearing my heels. We were getting ready to go to a pregnancy & infant loss service at church.

A Violent Day

Today was a scary violent day. This morning, the whole family went to the gym. On the way home, we saw a guy jump through the window of another guys car and beat him up. It was very scary to see. The guy almost seemed nonchalant about the fact that he just got punched a bunch of times and told us to keep moving. We got the guys licence plate number and called the cops. Now I'm just a little frightened about driving with my windows down and keep a lookout for that truck!

The other violent part of the day was Emma! She was on a biting streak. She kept it up all day and didn't understand why I would put her down and not nurse her when she did that. Luckily after that she hasn't done it again.

(This post was written on Wednesday, but postdated for the day it happened - Saturday).

Back to Travelling

Well Kris is back to travelling. And this time its not the nice leave on Tuesday come home Friday (that was Mexico) or the leave Monday come home Friday morning (California). Now he's leaving Monday and coming home Friday afternoon! I know a few hours, whats the difference - but there is!! As it is I'm sick of being by myself with the kids by Thursday that a few more hours on Friday is almost torture. I definately feel for moms who's husbands are in the military.

Anyway, it is back to normal. TV shows are on, Ryan is in school, Emma is on somewhat of a nap schedule. Last week was the usual. Ryan was in school until Friday. We were supposed to go on a Duck tour of Cincinnati, but the other people we were going with got sick, so we went to the aquarium. I keep hoping that Ryan will at some point like the aquarium, but it wasn't this time. He can run through that place in 30 minutes, but I managed to slow him down to a still quick 45 minute pace. I was hoping that Emma would sleep the whole time, but she must have known there would be cool things to look at. We also went to the bookstore when we were done, but Ryan decided to start opening packaged books up (because you know there aren't enough open ones there). So we had to leave, even without the ice cream I really wanted. By the time we got home I was exhausted. Oh - I forgot to mention that this trip began with me forgetting to put the valve in Ryan's water cup and spilled water all over my bag so that my phone was swimming in it. It dried out, but the antenna doesn't work now so I get no signal. I had to get a cheap phone on Saturday that would last me through the rest of my contract. Ryan loved his 'new' phone, he 'talked' to Daddy the whole way home from our shopping on Saturday.

Saturday, I took Ryan for some Mom-Ryan time. We went halloween shopping. Looking a little for him, but mostly for Emma. Sounds wrong, right? But he (we) decided that he is going to be a farmer. So we got him a straw hat and went looking for a cow costume for Emma. Ryan decided that Emma should be his cow. We also went out to lunch and had a great time together. Sunday, we all went shopping. Kris for a new lawn mower and me for (still) a cow costume (I finally bought one on line today).

Ryan has been doing great with his talking. His therapist sends home the words that we should be working on. This week was In, Up, Out, Ant and Arm. He recieved a plane track for his geo tracks from Aunt Sally for his birthday, but it didn't have a plane with it, so I got him a plane while we were out. He's loving it! He's having a lot of tantrums and fake crying mostly because we are ready to do something and he doesn't want to. I think its due to still sorting out the non-nap days. Naps have been hit or miss with him. He'll take one if we can get him in there, but he doesn't get on on school days unless he sleeps on the bus.

Emma is a great child. She's eating her food and playing well. Ryan isn't liking her getting into his toys and keeps trying to redirect her, but she loves to watch him play. Emma has been working on sitting up. She's not too great at it, but getting better. She's almost crawling. She can move forward in a slow army crawl and can get up on her knees but hasn't coordinated the arm/leg motion yet. She definately gets where she wants to go. When Ryan and I were out shopping, she got to stay home with Daddy and finally took some milk from something other than me! Amazingly it was a sippy cup. I'm happy because I signed up for a 2 night community education class and she'll need to go to bed during that time and because I can leave for a little bit without worrying about her. Plus she's been taking less milk because of the food she's eating. Happily for me, her nighttime sleeping is getting better, which started with me deciding to let her fuss at night and stop nursing her to sleep. She's now been getting a 6 hour stretch at night, which is making me feel a lot better!

Emma's Baptism Weekend

This past weekend our house was filled with out of town guests for Emma's baptism. My mom was the first to come on Thursday followed by the Harpers on Friday afternoon. My dad, Grandmother and Robin showed up later that night and the Stones made it out early Saturday morning. Overall it was a very full house. We had a great time with everyone. Friday night was spent having a great steak dinner at home followed by a night of dominos. Saturday, the boys and I worked outside - them cutting down some dead trees and me digging rocks out of our yard. Then we all headed to Newport to have dinner at the Hofbrau House and walk around the waterfront. Sunday, Kris made his wonderful french toast for us all and then we went off to church for Sunday service and Emma's baptism. Emma did great, especially for being extremely tired and hungry. Of course, she still smells from the oil, but we are so glad to welcome her into the church.

Emma also sprouted another tooth this weekend. Hopefully, we can get back to the happy baby soon. She is sitting a lot better now and really enjoys going after Ryan's toys - the baby toys don't seem to interest her as much.

As for Ryan, his speech has come a long way this week. We were all amazed at what he was saying. He really enjoyed having everyone here to play with and seemed to want to talk to them so much. He really enjoyed 'bothering' Nanny as he is calling my mom. He was obviously tired on Saturday when we found him on the floor in the living room sleeping! I'm very excited to see if his new speaking continues.

The Winds of School Cancellation

Hurricane Ike flew through here on Sunday. We had 40 mph sustained winds with gusts up to 80 mph. Lots of fun. The whole family sat outside for a while in the wind, enjoying the blowing and watching what the winds were doing to the newly planted lawn up the street. At one point, Kris was down the hill from our house looking for Ryan's picnic table, which at the time was one of the only things left outside (we found it). The power was out for about 3 hours, which bothered Ryan since he couldn't understand why we couldn't turn the tv on. Luckily it was in the afternoon, so it was still light out. Because of the storm, school was cancelled for 2 days. One thing I thought was hilarious was that the local tv stations didn't have any other background for school closings than the snow one they use in the winter! We had some roof damage and a lot of trees limbs down, but little else. There are people who were still out of power today, so we're praying they can get everyone back up soon.



Ryan was sick this past weekend, finishing the first full week of school by bringing home a horrible cold. He probably wouldn't have gone to school on Monday if he had it. He threw up on Sunday and Daddy was lucky enough to get to clean him up. He made it to the potty for the third round. So most of the weekend Ryan played cars, either with me or Kris.

I went to a mom to mom sale on Saturday and returned home with a toy to sit at for Emma. I'm trying to encourage her to sit by herself as much as possible. She enjoyed the toy (but not as much as Ryan did for some reason). Other than that, we've been busy figuring out how to use our new tv, installing the wall mount for it, installing the shelf in the garage and finishing the porch chairs. Well, this is to say Kris was doing all this, while I kept the kids busy (mostly putting them down for naps - that's all I seem to do anymore). Kris wanted me to mention that the shelf in the garage was designed by him with inspiration from the TX house.



We're getting ready for our families to come in to town for Emma's baptism this week (no I can't tell you the difference between a baptism and christening - to me they are one in the same). So I got to take both kids to the grocery store on Tuesday (big mistake) and try to get the house in order. Luckily, we are almost there. The troops start rolling in tomorrow, with my mom being the first one here and the Harpers to follow early Friday. Kris is excited to get some help chopping down a tree and mounting the tv.