Halloween fun!

Tonight we got the kids dressed up for some trick-or-treating fun. The boys decided to be farmers. Sam has wanted to be a farmer for a few weeks and Matthew decided on Tuesday that he wanted to be a farmer. Prior to that, he wanted to be a farmer or a green walrus. Glad he went with farmer. Abby was a Care Bear as we got a cute Care Bear costume as a hand-me-down from our Kirchhoff cousins. The attempts to get them all looking at the camera at the same time was of course unsuccessful (for those wondering why you haven't seen any pictures with the five of us...well, we can't get the kids even looking at the camera at the same time, and certainly not smiling, and given Matthew's aversion to strangers like a photographer, well, it would be an exercise in futility and just cause unneeded stress. So there won't likely be any family pics for awhile.) but at least we got them all in the same picture facing forward. So here are our little trick-or-treaters.

Sam was holding Abby back as she likes to be on the move and Matthew was trying to rake the concrete. Our little farmers looked an awful lot like hunters, but often they're one and the same, so I really don't see a problem with that. About the mini rakes, they got them from a neighbor on Monday so decided to use them as farmer props. Here's a couple of other pictures.

While Matthew was in a good mood in the pictures, he wasn't in much of a good mood when we were trick-or-treating. Rather, he looked down and didn't want to talk to our friendly neighbors and even he faced the street rather than the door of a house we were visiting. He was even a little shy when we went to Ken and Cheri's house. After a few houses I decided it was time for Matthew to be done trick-or-treating and he happily went home and then was himself. Abby went to a few of our closest neighbors then she was ready for bed. Sam and I then trekked down the rest of the street and he was very polite and enjoyed himself and got a pile of candy. Most of the neighbors noticed Matthew's absence and gave Sam extra candy to share with him. We had a good time and now we have a bunch of candy to enjoy! Happy Halloween!

Almost Halloween

Today we went shopping for our Halloween costumes. Now, Jason and I are not anti-Halloween, but we just don't get into it that much, plus we're just too tired to "get into" much of anything these days. While our tiredness has definitely improved as the kids have gotten older, there is a lot going on at our house with our little ones running around. Anyway, so this year, same as last year, we got our Halloween stuff put together the day before Halloween. Sam wore his outfit some after our shopping trip and was quite proud of himself and Matthew reluctantly tried his on, but wanted it immediately removed. He didn't shed any tears, though, so maybe he will not have a hard a time with wearing a costume this year as he did last year. Abby didn't get her costume on yet, but I have a feeling it may not go well. She likely won't wear the hood portion of her costume without much fussing, so she probably wont' wear it or will be crying in pictures with it on. We can always hope for the best. Come back tomorrow for some pictures of the kids all dressed up.

I am smiling

The other day I took out the camera to take some pictures of the kids. Sam especially wanted his picture taken and I said, "Ok, Sam, smile for the camera!" To which he replied, "I am smiling" and this is the face he was making.

So this is the phase we are in for Sam's smiling. We are no longer in the mouth-wide-open phase, we have matured to this.

Later in the day I was taking pictures of the kids on the stairs and here are a couple of keepers.

Happy Birthday Abby!

So our baby turned 1 on Friday. I guess she's not a baby anymore, but she is certainly "our baby" and will likely remain so for the rest of her life. We celebrated by having mac and cheese for lunch and opening some presents after dinner. Then today we had Jason's family over for a party (we celebrated with the Iowa clan in September). Despite having a cold, Abby had a pretty good time at her party. She wasn't quite sure what to make of singing "Happy Birthday" and blowing out her candle, but she did enjoy her cupcake in a very clean sort of way. She daintily would scrape off some frosting and eat it, then go for some more, then pick off a small piece of cake and eat it and so on.

After awhile Abby started running her fingers through her hair, but other than that she was very clean. Sorry, no face smeared with purple frosting pictures.

When we opened presents Sam was very eager to help her, so were Matthew and the cousins. It was like bees to honey when she started opening her gifts.

She got some toys, books and clothes and the big winners for her were the clothes. While she paid some attention to the toys, she loved the clothes. After she finished opening her gifts, she would pick up her clothes and wrap them around her neck or hug them. What a little girl. It worked out pretty well because the boys wanted to play with her toys, and she wanted to play with the clothes, so there wasn't any fighting (other than the boy fighting over Abby's toys...).

Anyway, we've been blessed with one year with Abby and what a year it has been!

Eating breakfast

Just took a few photos of Abby at breakfast this morning as I haven't taken many of her lately.

She's almost 1! What a cutie!

Sleeping

All the kids are sleeping now. All of them. It is very quiet. As much as I enjoy the kids, I still relish the quiet when they're sleeping. Abby went to bed around 7, and she chatted to herself for about 15 minutes before nodding off (I assume, since she's been quiet for the rest of the evening). The boys and I got ready for bed about 7:30 and calmly read stories in Sam's bed for awhile. Usually group storytime isn't so calm as the boys have a hard time sitting still for any length of time when they are together and prefer to run around, jump and touch each other. While they will sit still for indeterminate periods of time when I'm reading stories to them each alone, together is another story. I started using towels for storytime before naps (and bedtime when Jason's gone) so they each get a towel and have to sit on their towel (which I space a few feet apart from each other) while I read stories. It works pretty well (those preschool teachers know what they're doing) and has done much to alleviate the storytime craziness. So we read stories, prayed and sang our night night songs then the boys went to bed.

And I went to the master bedroom to do some work on the computer. Then Matthew started "Momomomomom!" He wanted to tell me that he wanted to go to the zoo. And the children's museum. And back to the zoo. And he asked if there are kangaroos at the zoo. And he kept throwing out random statements and questions until I finally told him to go to bed and left his room. So back to the master bedroom to work on the computer. Then Sam came in and said BaaBaa want to give me hugs and kisses. So he did, and then Sam told me that BaaBaa wanted to stay with me and Sam kept talking about something or another. I told him to go to bed and he kept talking. I just have a hard time getting the kids to bed when they just keep talking. Anyway, he finally left (and left BaaBaa with me with the instructions to bring him into Sam's room after 3 minutes) and I got back to work.

So after a few more interruptions, the kids finally fell asleep. Every night before Jason and I go to bed we sneak into Sam's room and shut off his lamp and I enjoy so much seeing him sleeping. He has all sorts of various positions for sleep, although his favorite seems to be on his back. It's not that I'm grateful he's finally asleep, there's just a surge of love and endearment that I feel when I look at him sleeping so peacefully. Matthew has started sleeping with the door to his room open, so I usually sneak into his room to peek at him too. The kids are just so cute when they're asleep. Matthew sleeps in various positions too, usually covered by or sleeping on top of books. I don't usually get to see Abby before bed as she sleeps with her door closed and I don't want o disturb the little princess. But I get to see her sleeping when I get her up sometimes when one of her naps is going too long. She seems to favor sleeping on her tummy with her legs tucked under her and butt up in the air. I remember the boys sleeping like that sometimes too.

Anyway, the kids are all sleeping and all is quiet.

Raking

Sam needed to redeem himself after the last pictures I posted of him, so here is a great one of my little four-year old sitting in a pile of pine needles after we had raked them up. Yep, that one's going in a frame. Anyway, about raking, Jason and the boys were outside raking when it came time to load up all the needles on a tarp to drag into the garage until their final destination-the dump. Jason pulled out the tarp and flattened it out, then the boys started throwing it by the arm-fulls onto the tarp. After a minutes or so of that, Jason got the idea that using wagons might be helpful for the boys so they both got a wagon and started loading it up with needles, pulling it over to the tarp and dumping it out.

Here's Sam and his wagon (with Abby helping???).

And then he finished off his load with a big effort-filled heave.

Matthew had a wagon that we got from Grandma Sue and he was making the most of it.

On a different note, today after church I brought Abby home for her nap while Jason stayed at the church with the boys so they could go to Sunday School. Anyway, it was around 10AM, which is normally Abby's nap time, so I took her upstairs, read a few books and put her down for her nap. I then went downstairs to clean up, look at the paper, and relax in my quiet and almost empty home. However, Abby did not want to go to sleep. I could hear her chatting over the monitor and she talked and talked and talked. She wasn't fussing, so I just let her go at it and she continued chatting for at least 30 minutes. I wondered if she was ever going to nap. Finally, it was all quiet. Then the Kirchhoff men got home.

So when noon came around I decided it was time to get Abby up in the hopes that we'd have some overlapping nap time in the afternoon.  If she sleeps beyond that, she generally won't take an afternoon nap and although that gives me a lot of quality time with her, mentally, I really need a break in the afternoon. As I was making lunch, Jason ran upstairs to get Abby. Moments later, he came down and said I had to come upstairs and see something. We gingerly entered Abby's room and saw her sitting, but leaning forward with her head propped up against the slats of the crib, sound asleep. After all her chatting, she had apparently fallen asleep sitting up. When Jason got her out of her crib she had a good sized crease on her forehead. At least she got a nap in.

I'm like you, Mommy!

Today after I put Abby down for her nap the boys and I were upstairs in the master bedroom as I was trying to get ready for the day. Sam first got out my tote of wrapping paper and gift bags and picked one out for cousin Josh while Matthew was playing on the bed, and then playing with curling ribbon. He was fully engrossed in the curling ribbon and left quite a mess of it in the bedroom, but at least I was able to get ready without interruption (yeah, in like 5 minutes).

And then there was an interruption. Sam called out to me, "Mommy, I'm like you." I was in the bathroom so I came out and there was Sam, without a shirt, but wearing my eye mask (which I use when I try to take a nap in our very bright bedroom) around his chest. Here's a look and there's Matthew enjoying the curling ribbon.

Big blue ball

Today the boys were outside playing with their two big blue bouncy balls. They were both straddling their balls and bouncing on them when Matthew's basically split into three pieces and he fell to the ground. He was unhurt and just a little surprised and nonchalantly got up and went about playing with other things. Sam, however, was devastated by the loss and threw his head back and cried about the broken ball. He repeatedly asked me if we could get another to replace it. After a few minutes of mourning, the boys picked up the pieces of broken ball (two of which were very large), covered their heads with them and began running around and chasing each other. Abby even discovered how much fun the broken rubber ball pieces were and exerted herself in trying to get one (i.e. she cried very loudly...see the picture below).

Later in the afternoon Matthew was preoccupied with his snack and Sam was playing with the remaining inflated ball. He looked so cute and "senior-photo-like" that I grabbed the camera and took his picture playing on the ball. Then I asked him to make funny faces and he offered me his sad face.

Then it was Matthew's turn for the ball. Sam was ok giving up the ball for Matthew to take pictures with, so he handed it over and Matthew began bouncing on it.

My last great idea was to have both the boys sit on the ball together (hoping it wouldn't break like the other one), with their backs together and faces toward me. Wouldn't that be cute? So I told Matthew I wanted him to make room for Sam to sit on the ball too. Well, that didn't work so well. Matthew picked up the ball, hugged it and ran around the yard screaming, "No, it's my turn!" He basically threw quite a loud fit and didn't stop until I told him that I thought I saw the neighbors staring out their windows at him, wondering at the noise. Matthew and Sam both really like the neighbors, so that stopped his crying, but he was certainly in no mood for sitting on the ball with Sam for a picture. Maybe another time.