Archive for November, 2013

Ewan at 4 months

Tuesday, November 19th, 2013 by Jen

Today Ewan turns 4 months! He is an active talkative little baby boy. He is constantly babbling most of the day along with the girls, contributing to the high ambient noise level. He loves to have conversations, especially while we’re changing his diaper making all sorts of throat and bubbly noises along with n’s.

He loves to grab everything and it keeps him busy to put toys nearby for him to handle and shove into his mouth. Everything goes into his mouth, my hands, toys, cats. The cats are very interesting for him now too, previously he’d been ignoring them. They put themselves right into harms way because they want to be pet. Ezzy generally jumps right onto the changing table right when I go to change him if she’s not already there and sits right next to his head.

He wants to be involved and included in everything. He loves to be carried to be right in the action and be able to see it all. He resists napping when he can see exciting things going on around him, but when it gets calm he’ll drop off easily. He sits at the table with us now as we eat and plays with toys. His favorite is just a chain of links that can be gnawed on. He watches us as we bring food to our mouths again and again, trying to grab for himself. He also chews along with us.

Ewan enjoys swinging in the baby swings and loves when the girls give him great one on one attention. He’s more aware now of who is holding him and often desires just mommy. He’s a great snuggler and I love how well he can just cuddle in when he’s tired and fall asleep on my shoulder. He wants to be carried to sleep all the time, but he’s accepting more of being put down in bed. He’ll stay in bed 11 to 12 hours at night, but he’s been a very frequent waker, we’re working on that.

Don’t know exactly how big he is, we’ll find out next week but he’s reaching the limit of his 6 month clothes so we’ll size up soon. He’s spending a lot of time working on his arm muslces and tummy ones. He can sit up for a few seconds before toppling over and can push himself over with his feet. He’ll stand on his own weight too as we hold him up. Pretty much right on track with the girls and their physical development. He’ll even move his feet to walk if we’re holding him on his feet.

Lots of pictures, all from today, as we had breakfast with Josie, then Celia’s gymnastics class. Later after picking up Josie and going to costco we had some more time at home.

Ewan's hands

The view from above.

At the table

Eating breakfast, the girls anyway.

up close

Working on those shoulder and back muscles

watching the gymnasts

Could roll if I wanted to!

sucking those fingers

Still loves those fingers.

the giggler

smiles!

straight on

It’s hard to tell what color his eyes are still, they’re so dark!

standing tall

Standing with help!

big and little

Just a little lean!

We are family: November 2013

Sunday, November 17th, 2013 by Jen

Sorta a cheat, as my dad took it, but it’s got us all!

The five of us

This was all of us at the MFA to reinforce Josie’s learning about Eygpt these days in school, we took her to see the real mummy and writing on the wall!

Date night

Wednesday, November 13th, 2013 by Jen

This past weekend, to try to help with our children feeling like they don’t get any alone time, we had ‘date night’, in the afternoon. My parents took Celia and we took Josie (and Ewan stays with me always cause he’s a baby). Celia originally wanted to get ice cream and go to my parents house, but the draw of their toys was just too much and they skipped the ice cream and went to play. They played games, raked leaves and jumped in them, and ate mandarin oranges. Josie had been wanting to see a movie and so we made some snacks (puppy chow and popcorn) and sat down and watched “The Lorax” with her. She wanted us to turn it off multiple times because it was too scary but she got through it. After we did puzzles. And this is now how we roll doing puzzles. He’s not quite coordinated enough yet to really get a piece in his mouth, just move them around a bit.

Ewan puzzling it out

Snuggles on the couch!

Monday, November 11th, 2013 by Jen

My loves

Fred and George

The two of them are regulars on the couch at night now, literally spooning and kissing each other.

My favorite picture window

Monday, November 11th, 2013 by Jen

The air conditioner is out, my favorite picture taking place in the house is back.

I'll be watching you

good times

happy!

she's got the head tilt down pat

Halloween 2013!

Sunday, November 10th, 2013 by Jen

This year for Halloween we took it easy! We had gotten a big pile of pumpkins from Josie’s school’s harvest festival. We took two of them to Sharona and Jeremy’s pumpkin carving party where the girls helped Jordi carve and decorate them. We didn’t even carve the big huge pumpkin, time just gets away from us these days as we try to keep everyone fed, sleeping enough, clothed and moderately happy. Another year we’ll get there. The girls were more active this year for carving at least. They even had previous practice hollowing one out when we cooked our own sugar pumpkin this year.

We also kicked off the Halloween week with a fun get together with some of my mom friends from the baby group I was a part of when Josie was born. Our number of families has dwindled but the number of kids has grown so it was still a fun outing. Celia was displeased at this photo because she wanted to be the one holding Ewan. Connor also declined to get in the picture.

Luke, Nolan, Josie, Ewan, Lucy, Alden, Clare, Emma and Celia

Then on Halloween day we did all our trick or treating almost the entire time between when Josie got out of school till bedtime. We picked her up from school and brought the costumes with us and tossed them on before hitting the local business district for some early practice trick or treating. It got the girls into the habit of  the please and thank you, over some shy times, and seeing people in costume in day light. Celia is at the age where head covering costumes are very scary for her. So we had to hide out and wait for some scary people to leave the area at times before we could continue. At that point, Josie was a yellow princess, Celia was a ballerina and Ewan was a jaguar. Many of the businesses were super generous, like a giant cookie from Olivios and Quebrada just offered up anything in the main case.

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After that trick or treating, it started to rain and it was time to go home anyway. We came home, had some candy and some non-candy food. Then we headed over to Waldo park for their annual Halloween party. It’s normally a little more crazy but this year was tame because the rain kept coming and going. The kids did a ‘fashion show’ which consists of walking through a doorway and having your name and costume announced. At this point I think the girls had switched costumes too. We tried to get them to eat some veggie hot dogs and vegetables and remembered to feed ourselves a little too. Then it was time for real trick or treating and I sent Ewan home with Jordi to man our door. We went off with my two plus Josie’s friend Sophie joined us. We made it down Amsden St back to our house at which point Celia wanted a break and stayed home. I took Josie and Sophie down the rest of our street until Sophie said she was ready to go home too, we brought her home and then picked Celia up to finish up a few more houses on the opposite side of our street. Josie was then content. We brought it all home and they dumped out their huge pile of loot. We had even made drop offs of the afternoon candy and still the pumpkins were huge.

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Because of the aforementioned rain, plus carrying baby, plus wanting to stay in the moment, you get crummy ipod photos only.

Josie also did a great job carrying around a box for unicef and shaking down the neighbors for money. My favorite was when one person gave her a dollar instead of coins she said “that person gave me the wrong kind of money!” Then I explained how the paper stuff was even better. Her box was stuffed full by the end of the night.

They ate a bunch that night and a few more pieces over each day. They shared with us willingly, what great kids! And then by Tuesday we sent almost all of it to Jordi’s office, and capped off the week of Halloween on Thursday by making some M&M cookies out of the bags I saved for such an event.

Also on Friday after Halloween my dad’s office threw a crazy party. They had crafts for the kids, food that looked liked rats, eyeballs, guts and more gory options, liquid nitrogen ice cream, and custom flip book movies. It was a great time and even had a ‘swamp thing’ cake rumored to weigh 300 lbs! It took up an entire 8ft by 8ft table.

Photoshoots!

Sunday, November 10th, 2013 by Jen

Some of our awesome friends have let me take some of their pictures this fall. I hope not to steal their thunder of any Christmas cards but I want to share my favorites of the whole families!

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Interview with Celia

Sunday, November 3rd, 2013 by Jen

Here’s an interview I did with Celia at age 3.

Q: Who is your favorite person in the whole world?

A: Bronwyn and Blake

Q: What is your favorite color?

A: orange

Q: What is your favorite television show?

A: yo gabba gabba and Mr Rogers

Q: What is your favorite outfit?

A: Balloon ballerina shirt with purple fleece pants

Q: What sport do you like best?

A: bumper cars

Q: What is your favorite breakfast?

A: waffles and sausage

Q: Who is your best friend?

A: Josie

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?

A: I don’t know

Q: What  is your favorite book?

A: The apple pie tree

Q: What are you really good at?

A: baseball

Q: Where do you wish you could go on vacation?

A: Waldo park and Virginia (their friend Adelaide moved back to Virginia)

Q: What would you buy if you had $1000?

A: a donut

Q: What vegetable do you hate the most?

A: eggs

Q: What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

A: chocolate

Q: What do you like to do best with your friends?

A: play at the park

Celia stretching

Ewan at 3 months

Friday, November 1st, 2013 by Jen

Still trying to catch up here… two weeks ago Ewan turned 3 months old! At three months he is a smiling machine. He loves to see other people and new places. He’ll play with his toys for a bit but what he wants most is to be on the move. He wants to be carried and seeing the world around him. Then when he gets tired (which isn’t much) I turn him around to face towards me and he’ll drop right into a nap. In fact he almost exclusively takes all his naps while I’m carrying him on my chest. He doesn’t sleep much otherwise he’s so excited, generally only one good nap, otherwise it’s little cat naps.

He loves his sisters paying attention to him and will sing back at them when they sing to him. He also likes to spend a lot of time standing and being propped up to sit and play with things. He almost always has a runny nose, the poor guy, so he’s not particularly fond of being flat. He will tolerate some good tummy time for a few minutes, but he doesn’t want to be on his back much even with the toys. He does better breathing sitting up.

Continues to hate the car like all my babies do. We try to avoid driving. Otherwise he’s a pretty happy little guy, watching the world go by and a big nurser. He always is ready to nurse and never wants to stop. He’s starting to be able to manipulate toys and control his arms more!

Ewan at three months