Random thoughts...

We had a great Thanksgiving.  Lot's of eating and relaxing and then some more eating.  And so many things to be thankful for.

I had all of these random thoughts to post, but now I can't seem to remember them!  I have mush for brains these days.  Hmmmm...

Today I tried sitting Sam up on his own and he was able to sit up!  I couldn't believe it!  He toppled over after a minute or so, but it still impressed me and you could tell he was excited.

Have I ever mentioned how much Sam LOVES freezing cold fresh air?  Whenever he's crying, all I have to do is walk outside and he instantly stops, takes a deep breath and starts looking around.  Works like a charm every single time.  I'm sure my neighbors think I'm crazy, bringing a screaming baby out onto the porch even when it's snowing, but whatever works, right?  And whenever we go for a walk, the colder it is outside the faster he falls asleep and stays asleep.

Poppy is all about card games lately.  She is super fun to play with and is finally good at waiting her turn, etc.  I think her favorite right now is Snap, or maybe Old Maid.  The entire time we play, she keeps saying "I hope I don't get stuck with the OLD MAID!!!"  Super cute.

Can you believe how big he is getting?  4 months already!  Oh, and he has his first photo shoot at Fisher-Price this morning.  That should be interesting.  Poppy has been saying that she would like to get something for Sam for Christmas so she is coming with us to the photo shoot and then I told her we can go to the toy store afterwards and she can pick out a toy for him.  She is beyond excited to pick out his toy (which she totally knows he will be too little to play with and that she'll have to play with it for the next couple of years...)

Hallelujah!

Guess who slept through the night last night?!  Yep, this little cutie pie.  It's a miracle!  And after getting 9+ straight, uninterrupted hours of sleep for the first time in over four months, I feel like a new woman today!!!  (And Sam seems to be in a pretty good mood too!)  So we started doing "sleep training" last week, and as hard as it was, it was also the best thing we could have done.  We learned the hard way with Poppy that the older they are when you start, the harder it is to do, so I always knew we were going to start young with this little stinker.  We started with just having him learn to put himself to sleep at night and the first few nights were rough (for everyone involved), but do-able.  Then a few days later we moved on to having him put himself to sleep for his naps and now after a week, I can put him in his crib while he is awake and he falls asleep without a peep.  How awesome is that?  And he has been waking up once a night for nursing, but last night he just slept through it!!!  I'm trying not to get too excited because who knows what will happen tonight, but at least I know we are on our way to full nights of sleep!  Yay Sam!!!!

We've also been celebrating a few birthdays (my dad's and Courtney's) and Marc and I had our first night out sans kiddos!  Exciting stuff!

We also met up with some friends for a "literary playdate" which involved a craft, storytime and then Corduroy made an appearance!  Poppy was pretty scared of him, so I didn't get any pictures.  While Poppy and Claire were playing, Sam and Oliver had time to hang out too.  How cute are they together?

We're still here.  Time is just flying by lately.  I don't even know what we've been up to!  I haven't uploaded pics since Halloween, and there was barely anything on the camera.  I'm gonna work on taking more pics lately though because my two little monkeys are growing up waaaaaay too fast.

Here are a few pics of Poppy showing Sammy the ropes about her rats.  Just take a look at how many rats she has.  (and the 5 "back-up" ratty's we have aren't even included in this pic)

She was being serious when she taught him how to gently pet ratty, and to not spit up on him, or put his tail in your mouth.  Sam took the lesson very seriously.

So let's just talk about how big he is getting all of a sudden.  First it was the exersaucer and then a few days later I put up the jumperoo.  He loves this thing.  He loves anything that lets him push with his legs.  His absolute favorite thing is for me to hold him up by his hands so that he can pretend he's standing.  He gets the biggest smile on his face and I think he thinks he's really standing.  (I'll have to get a pic of that soon)

And this is from a few weeks ago when I was at book club and Marc had Poppy help him give Sam his bottle.  She was so proud of herself that she was feeding her baby brother.

As of the other day, he no longer uses these little bottles, he graduated to the big boy size!  (which means a ton more work for me in the pumping dept.)  And last week, one day all of his 0-3 month clothes fit him.  The next day they didn't!  It was crazy!  It literally seemed like he doubled in weight overnight!

Whenever I get the chance, I've been making little batches of baby food that I store in the freezer.  Poppy decided to help me make kale cubes the other day.  It's amazing how quickly her "helping" went from meaning that the kitchen would be a bigger mess, to now she actually really helps.  She scooped all of the baby food into the ice cube trays while I did dishes!



Do you see what I mean about them getting so big all of a sudden?

Happy Halloween!

Poppy wasn't really that into pumpkin carving this year, but Marc still was!

On Saturday we had some friends over and we all walked down to Elmwood, where all of the neighborhood shops were having trick-or-treating.  It was a fun afternoon spent with friends and it was so nice to be able to dress up in everyone's costume during the day.

Then on Halloween we went to Scott and Jessica's to see all of the cousins in their costume.  And this is where Sam finally made his debut as one of Snow White's dwarfs.

And the Louie the Lorax was spotted "speaking for the trees".

Trick-or-treating was a huge hit this year, even though it was so cold that we only made it to a handful of houses.  After each house, Poppy would proudly exclaim that when she gets home she is going to eat up all of her candy!

As soon as we walked in the door, she dumped her loot and lined it all up like this.  I remember doing the same thing when I was little, getting ready for the big candy trade with my brothers.

Luckily we were able to talk her out of eating everything that night, and now the rest of her candy is working well as bribes to get her to continue to nap each day!

Halloween galore!

The other night we were doing a practice run with the costumes.  Lola is apparently auditioning for the role of "the prince" who wakes up snow white with a kiss.  (Poppy thought that was pretty funny.)

Last week we brought these 2 pumpkins to the pumpkin farm to pick out pumpkins!

Poppy was super excited to ride the pony this year.  After picking our pumpkins from the patch, she went for another horse ride, but this time without me holding onto her back.  It was a pretty big deal in Poppy's world. :)

Then the next day we were off to the halloween event at the zoo.  Sam was sporting his pumpkin outfit again, which is always a big hit.

And Poppy loved the adventure of "following her map" to find all the places to trick-or-treat throughout the zoo...

The next morning Sam was still recovering from all of the pumpkin festivities and could barely make it through breakfast before he fell asleep.  How sweet is that little face?  (and please ignore my super sweet bathrobe and crazy lookin' hair)

We've had halloween parties galore this week.  The first one was at ballet class.  Poppy couldn't stop checking herself out in the mirror.  Like, she barely participated in anything during class because she was staring at her costume the entire time!

How cute are they?!

The next day was the party at storytime at the library and then today was her party at school.  Poppy has consumed more sugar in the past week than she has in her entire lifetime.  And she still has 2 more parties to go!

And we have some very exciting news in the Sammy dept.  I think we reached the fussiness peak and as of this week he has been getting sooooo much better.  It's so exciting to actually be able to talk and play with him, rather than just have to soothe him all the time!  And yesterday we busted out the exersaucer!  This thing is super obnoxious and takes up our entire living room, but Sam loves it, so it's worth having to look at it all the time.  Doesn't he look like a tiny little peanut in it?

Now we just have to get him to sleep through the night!  As soon as I'm back to getting a full night sleep, I promise to go back to regular blog posts!

Mary Poppins!

Last night was the much anticipated Mary Poppins musical.  Poppy had no idea what was in store for her, she thought she was just going to see the movie again.  We had a rare mommy and Poppy night to ourselves...

Our first stop was a yummy dinner at Poppy's favorite restaurant, Chef's.  She had been talking about going there all week long.

We finally arrived at Shea's and she seemed a little confused at first, but excited just the same.  I tried to explain what was going to happen, but she still just thought it was going to be the movie.  But when the music started and the first scene began, she sat up straight in her chair.  And then when Mary Poppins appeared on stage, she leaned forward and her jaw just about dropped to the floor.  "Mommy!  It's really Mary Poppins!  There she is!!!"  Throughout the entire musical, every time Mary Poppins was not in a scene, she wanted to know where she was.  And every time Mary Poppins was singing, Poppy would exclaim how pretty her voice was.  By intermission time, she was just plain giddy.

They had so many cute souvenirs and I wanted Poppy to have a memento of her first musical.  I decided to get her the classic Mary Poppins chapter book, figuring we could read it together in a few years.  When I gave her that book, you would have thought I gave her the most exciting toy ever.  She immediately opened it up and pretended to read it.  Everyone sitting around us kept commenting on how adorable it was that she was so excited over a chapter book.

And she was so nervous about missing any of the second half of the musical that she refused to leave her seat for the rest of the intermission.  I even told her we could walk up and look at the stage, but she said it would be starting soon and she didn't want to miss any of it.  Oh, and she held onto the book throughout the rest of the musical.

This was when one of the best musicals I have ever seen, and it was so special to be able to watch it with Poppy.  In the very last scene, Mary Poppins flies over the audience, and luckily for us she flew just a few feet away from us.  It was so neat that I was literally getting teary-eyed!  The whole experience was definitely something I'll always remember.

...........

In other news, this little cutie pie has learned to smile and laugh, which is awesome. (not sure why the coloring is so off in this pic, and although his hair does have a little tint of orange, it's usually not this fluorescent orange)

Poppy has been working on making a new home for Ratty...

We spent Columbus Day at Tifft Nature Preserve learning about beavers...

And Sam is desperately trying to suck on his little thumb.  All day long, if this kid is awake, all you can see are his little hands and fingers flapping all over and he huffs and puffs trying to get that little thumb in his mouth.  And then once he does find it, he lets out this little sigh of relief as if he were saying "Ah, I found you!"

And then once he's done sucking his thumb, he has been known to fold his little hands like this...

Oh, and Sam has a new best friend.  His name is Dyson.  For those of you that haven't already figured this out, Sam is quite the fussy little baby.  He likes to be held by me, all day long.  Which makes it rather difficult to get anything done around the house.  Which is why it is not uncommon for weeks to pass before I can vacuum or clean.  But the other day I just decided that enough is enough and I put him in the swing even though I knew he would start crying, and I just started to vacuum.  Well as soon as Sam heard the vacuum he stopped crying and started smiling.  Even when I turned the vacuum off, he still just sat there staring at it.  So this is now where the vacuum cleaner lives (in front of Sam's swing).

Can you see the look of love in his eyes?  I'm pretty sure he loves Dyson almost as much as he loves me. :)

apple picking

I am sooo behind with blog posts!  We went apple picking a few weeks ago and I am just getting around to finally posting the pics!

We met up with a few families that adopted from Poppy's same agency (one of the families actually owns the beautiful apple orchard and let's us all pick as many apples as we want for free!).  The weather was perfect and Poppy was so excited to be able to pick and eat an unlimited supply of apples!

Notice that she has a half-eaten apple in her hand in almost every single picture.  She was in apple heaven.

Are you wondering where Sam is?  He was peacefully sleeping the entire time we were there!

Isn't this the most amazing property?  I would love to live there!!!

As much as Poppy loved the apple picking and eating, her favorite part of the day was getting to go on this tractor!

We decided to stop and try to pick up a few pumpkins on the way home.  Poppy has been singing this Dora song non-stop lately and after about the 50th time she sang it, I finally decided to try to catch it on video, hence the lack of enthusiasm she had by this point, but still soooo cute!