All is well today at Ewan’s 4 month checkup. He weighed in at 13 lbs 11 oz! Gaining almost 3 lbs in the last two months and 1.5 inches in length to be 25.5 inches long now!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The above one is from a few weeks ago. Below is today.

We celebrated fall with our usual activity, apple picking. This year we were even on the ball enough to go almost in September! Usually we’re a bit later in the season. I remember going three years ago waiting and waiting for Celia to arrive while we went. We went again to Honeypot hill orchards and picked lots of great apples. Josie decided she likes the honey crisp ones the best for eating out of hand. The rest were mostly baking apples so I definitely agreed with her. They were sweet and all the apples were very juicy. Both girls were great at picking this year and following proper picking etiquette. Celia’s favorite part may have been throwing the half eaten apples under a tree once she was done trying them.

We started off our day having a picnic breakfast of dunkin donuts on my parents front lawn. It was the fastest way to get us moving on the way out to picking.

Then we all headed out in our minivan, me and Ewan in the back row, which thankfully made him a much happier traveler. We got there and headed out to pick apples first.

And then I handed Ewan to my dad so I could take pictures and pick apples and he could get some quality baby time in.

Pictures are of course the point of apple picking. And it was a very lovely day for it all.

On the way out there was a gorgeous tree in full fall transition and so I had everyone pose in front of it for new pictures for my walls.

After picking the apples Jordi brought them back to the car so we could go to the hayride and all the other amusements.

Then we got to go on the hayride.

We saw the three little pigs, the goats, the chickens and bunnys. We ate donuts and veggie burgers before heading back home.

Those apples made their way into a yummy crisp and applesauce, both of which were devoured quickly. The girls helped me do the chopping withe some butter knives. Josie’s got a real technique.

Well Josie’s learned one new thing at Kindergarden at least, spider swinging. And Ewan about two weeks ago learned to roll over! But he’s taking a page from Josie’s playbook and although he did it multiple times, over more than one day, he’s now stopped entirely. He pushes up, but just lays down if he gets tired instead of rolling. It’s like he forgot.

hey im behind on photos, and the relatives are restless. Here’s one from last week.

Today I cooked my first ever whole pumpkin. It went into soup for dinner, and muffins for tomorrow.

Josie had her first sick day from school.

As overheard on the way back from the park. Celia hit her hand on a stone wall. “Oww Josie I hurt my hand. We have to play doctor when we get home.”

And I caught Ewan on camera with his new trick.

Ewan has turned into a smiley happy baby by the end of this month. He’s got great head control and wants to look around at his world and see what’s going on. The girls make great entertainment for him sitting in his seat so I can do chores or take care of my own basic needs. Some of his favorite time now is getting his diaper changed on the changing table. He can see us really well and spends a lot of time talking and smiling and laughing at whoever is doing the changing. It’s definitely some of his best one-on-one time in this busy household!

He loves to be carried in the wrap facing out to see the world until he’s tired, but if I face him in he’ll just sleep the entire time up to three hours. Very handy when I want to get something done and enforce a nap. These days his sleeping pattern is still all over the place but with Josie’s school getting out at just past 2 every day, we walk to pick her up and he falls asleep while being carried regularly. Otherwise we catch them as we go and he’s generally only awake for 3 hours at a time. At night he’s awake 3 times a night, or more. I’ve been mostly good about going to bed really early myself so that is helping.

He likes to play with his mat and bat at the toys and talk to them. He also loves to stand up on my lap and practice his strength. Just this week he learned to pick up his head completely while on his belly and look around. He’s also started to notice the cats and follow them. He also likes to look at our wall of art in the dining room.

He is willing to be put down frequently, but does love to be held and won’t sleep long without me holding him or sleeping next to him. Thankfully we do try to do a lot of walking and I carry him for those naps.

He went to the doc a few days before his official 2 month birthday and came in at 24 inches long and 11 lbs even. He’s gaining weight like crazy, seems like overnight he outgrows more clothes. He’s wearing 6 month clothes now and the stuff from the girls that has been washed and shrunk many times fits very well, the newer stuff has a tiny bit of room to grow. We’ll be on to the 9 month clothes in no time.

He likes a bath, until it’s time to get out and be wet and cold. He loves to nurse and won’t ever stop of his own accord, I always have to stop him. No wonder he grows so well! He loves his sisters and they’ve managed not to maim him yet despite some vigorous loving and touching.

Everyone has an opinion on who he looks like. And they all say different things, which is pretty funny. Here’s one of his new tricks, making funny faces and sticking out his tongue at us.

My impression? he looks more like Josie did as a baby than Celia. But of course they’ve all got the same parents, so it’s similar.