Happy Halloween!

We hope that everybody had a wonderful Halloween!  (We know that some of our friends to our north are still suffering the effects of Sandy and therefore could not celebrate.  We are thinking of you!)  We had a jam-packed day, filled with school and multiple bouts of trick-or-treating.  When Katie got off the bus today at around 4:40, we literally had just minutes to get home, unload, eat a quick dinner, put on our costumes, and get back to the school for its Trunk-or-Treat put on by the teachers.  (The teachers so nicely rescheduled for today after Hurricane Sandy ruined Monday's event.)  After the kids loaded up their bags there, we came back home to resume our neighborhood trick-or-treating.  As you can see, Michael was a rather hilarious and cute farmer/tractor.  Katie was a beautiful fall fairy...please excuse the lack of wings, they were left in the house.

As for Neve, she stayed home to hand out candy with Mommy.  She didn't really have her own costume since she wasn't trick-or-treating, but we did think she would look awfully cute in Katie's old kangaroo costume.  Even though she was a couple months younger than when Katie wore it, she hardly fit into it!  She just keeps on growing.

Of course, at the end of the night, the kids had their annual candy dump and binge.  Thankfully, they were so tired from all of the activity (nearly 2 hours of trick-or-treating when all was said and done!) that they crashed in their beds in spite of their sugar highs.  We'll say that Halloween was a major success!

Sandy vs. Katie/Michael -- You Decide!

Here we are, reporting back post-Sandy!  We got through an extremely windy and rainy night absolutely unscathed.  Our power did flicker on and off at least 20 times throughout the day and evening, but never for more than a few seconds.  (All of that flickering did scare the bejeebus out of Michael, especially when he was in the middle of a bath!)  Thankfully, Daddy and Katie were able to stay home both Monday and Tuesday, so we had the entire family together, safe and sound.  Actually, all five of us slept in the kids' room last night so that we could be away from our tall trees in the back.  The kids loved it!  We do realize how lucky we were, as we have seen the apocalyptic images from NYC, NJ, and CT.  We are thinking that many of our weaker trees came down during the massive derecho back in July.  (Remember that....power out for at least a week down here, 100-degree heat, blah, blah, blah.)  Anyway, as we make light of the situation, please be aware that we do realize how serious Sandy has been for so many people.

That being said, you be the judge as to who was the more powerful force here the last several days:

What is left of our dime-store Halloween decorations.  If you thought big cotton spider webs were spooky before, you should see hurricane-strewn ones.  Please note that our dear pumpkins were well-protected by the plastic garbage bags.


These were the biggest downed trees in our neighborhood.  The one to the left came within inches of taking out the playground swings.





Otherwise, the biggest "problem" in our immediate neighborhood was slick leaves and sticks covering sidewalks and roads.  I'm sure the guys with the leaf blowers will be out in full force soon enough to clean that up.












The view from our balcony.  A couple large branches were bent farther down and the river was streaming faster than normal.  Otherwise, nada.





And, then there was Hurricane Katie/Michael...throwing Legos, puzzle pieces, sticker books, pillows, stuffed animals, and every other toy detritus around in their wake.

Jack O'Lanterns Glowing

In case we aren't online for awhile, Happy Halloween to everybody!  We'll leave you with Michael's mischievous smirk (Left) and Katie's demure princess (Right).

Calm Before the Storm

With today as mild and beautiful as it was, it was hard to conceive that a major hurricane is heading our way!  Since we may have a lot of time on our hands in the near future without power, we wanted to make sure that we got to the pumpkin patch to pick up some pumpkins.  (Carving will be fun to do by candle light, right?)  The kids had a blast running around, trying to find their perfect gourd.  Neve even had fun munching on all of the hay laying around.  (Apparently she is a farm animal....)  We ended up with two nice selections, one short and stout, one tall and towering (for Michael, of course!).  If we still have power, we'll let you see our creations soon.

As for the storm itself, we've made our grocery store run and washed our clothes.  The phones and Kindle are all set to charge, and batteries are in place in the flashlights.  Now we just have to wait and see.  Of course, we are hoping for minimal damage to the surrounding areas.  But we do have one extra wish:  that the rain somehow stops by trick-or-treat time.  Darn Mother Nature and her timing!  One thing about power outages at this time of year:  it does get quite dark by about 6:15 around here.  Might be some early nights coming up for us!!

Fall Festival Fun

It's that time of year again....you can't go a mile in Northern Virginia without running into a Fall Festival on the weekends.  Here are some shots from the ones we've visited this year:

Michael, the Impaler

Katie's first time allowing somebody to paint her face....too bad we washed it off within hours of application.

Lasso girl.  At least she tried to swing it over her head.  Michael nearly impaled the cow by banging it over the head with the lasso.

Katie found a cool tree to climb.

In spite of his appearance here, Michael did actually enjoy this wagon ride.

And, so did the girls!

Seven Months Already?

I know it's becoming cliche on this blog, but time really does zoom by, doesn't it?  Our baby girl is now seven months and hitting milestones left and right.  In addition to her first tooth (discussed in our last post), she is also sitting up more, rolling here and there, actually opening up her mouth for solid foods, and talking our ears off.  She is quickly burning through her clothes, now up to 12-months size.  And, tonight, we finally had to move her out of her infant tub into a bigger one since her long legs were sticking out of the old one.  One cute thing that is all her own (neither K nor M did it)?  Thumbsucking.  Sure, she'll take a paci here and there, but her bread and butter is all in the thumbs.  She is quick to flash a smile and giggle whenever her loved ones are around, but she's also very picky with who can hold or watch over her.  We look forward to her first bout with teething to be over so that we can get our happy-go-lucky kiddo back.  Until then, here's to another month with more great things to come!

Gummy No More!

Isn't genetics such a mysterious thing when it comes to siblings?  Sometimes, they can be so alike that it's scary.  Other times, you just scratch your head and wonder how they all evolved from the same set of parents.  Although experts agree that you should never compare your kids, it's really hard not to, especially when they throw you for a major surprise.  Take Nevie, for example.  Today, with no warning at all, we discovered that she had cut her first tooth!  Now, when your first two kids cut their teeth at 1 year and 10 months respectively, you sort of train yourself to not even pay attention to such things at this early stage.  Yes, she had been a bit fussier lately and not sleeping so well, but we had written those things off to colds or impending milestones.  Nope, that tooth was just waiting to pop out! 

On another note, related to our last post, we are sorry to state that only one Skittle has come out of the pint glass the last couple of days.  Maybe he's just not ready.... 

Operation Skittles

Blech.  We hate potty-training.  Yes, HATE is a strong word that we urge our kids to refrain from using, but we think it is apt here.  We just don't have those kids who "click" with potty-training.  You know those kids who, legend has it, just learn on their own over a weekend?  Yeah, those aren't our kids.  (In fact, we sneer at parents who tell those stories.)  Katie was enough of a struggle, and we certainly weren't looking forward to the challenge with Michael.  Obviously, his third birthday has come and gone without his clamoring for undies, so we finally decided to step up the training ourselves.

Whereas we went with the sticker chart/reward method with Katie, we decided to run with the more immediate candy reward system with Michael.  (He doesn't have the attention span to fill an entire row of stickers for a prize!)  We filled up a pint glass with one of his favorite candies (Skittles) and said that he could have one every time he successfully peed in the potty.  The number obviously goes up for the other kind of bathroom visit, you get the picture.  He was SO excited at this prospect that he earned 6 Skittles in the first hour.  Since then, his interested has petered off (no pun intended) and he maybe earns 1-2 per day.  Oh well, better than nothing, we guess.  And, why didn't we listen when everybody warned that things would be so much messier with a boy???  BLECH!  Anyway, wish us luck to get through Potty-Training 2.0.

On a more positive note, we also wanted to report that Neve finally rolled on her own last week!  Yay!  Now, if only she would do it again.... 

Fire, Fire!

In one of our favorite annual rituals, we walked over to our local fire department's Open House today.  All of the area fire and police departments do an awesome job of opening up their stations to kids of every age.  Katie and Michael got to plan escape scenarios for dolls in a doll house, try on some actual fire gear, jump in the front seats of a fire truck and ambulance, and even spray an actual fire hose.

This was one of their favorite activities.  The fire fighters left out some of their "exercise equipment" for the kids to play with.  There were over-sized tires and weights that the kids were challenged to move.  Whereas one very strong firefighter could flip one of these tires, it took at least 10 kids to budge it an inch.  Guess we better start hitting those weights!

Gym Jammin'

Last, but certainly not least: Mr. Michael!  Our little dude is growing up right before our very eyes.  He looks so much more like a little boy than a toddler!  (Now, if we could just get rid of that last remnant of toddlerhood...the diaper...)  Although he would still rather stay home with Mom-Mom and Nevie, he is adjusting to preschool.  He even gets a "little" excited when he sees his classroom and teachers.  The only part that still really scares him at school?  Nap time, when they turn off the lights.  Oh well, he's not a big fan of naps at home either.

He also recently started a parks and recreation class called Gym Jam.  It's basically an excuse for 2-3 year-olds to run around a big gymnasium for 45 minutes.  He's come a long way from his class antics of a year ago (ignoring the teacher, climbing on equipment, crying, etc.)  He now fully joins with the rest of the class and has learned how to play a mean game of "Duck, Duck, Goose," kick a ball into a goal, and get his tricycle around the cones of an obstacle course.  Neve and I love to see him so happy.

The big boy did have his 3-year-old check-up while we were offline last week.  This was such an easy appointment since no shots were involved.  We, of course, discussed his normal concerns, speech and diet.  But, other than that, all seems well.  (He does get reevaluated by the county for his speech next month.)  He even sort of figured out how to do a vision test!  In spite of eating nothing but air these days, he does keep growing.  His latest measurements:  Height - 38 7/8 inches (83rd percentile) and Weight - 33 pounds (65th).

Hair Artiste

Now, on to Katie...  Our budding kindergartener is really hitting her stride at school.  She seems to have made a lot of friends, both in her class and at the bus stop.  (In fact, she likes her new friends so much that she has stopped standing near us while waiting for the bus.  Sniff.)  Even though she's pretty tired when she gets home from school, she's always up for giving us a few stories here and there.  Her favorite part of school (besides recess, of course) is the recurring program, "The New Sheriff in Town."  Her teacher has selected a cowboy/cowgirl theme to run throughout the year, and the "Sheriff" is kind of like the student-of-the-week.  He or she gets to bring in his/her favorite book, favorite toy, favorite snack, you get the picture.  A new Sheriff is picked out of the cowboy hat every Friday, and it's always quite the day of anticipation.  We'll let you know when Katie is the Sheriff!

In other news, Katie is definitely on the verge of becoming a true reader!  As her homework, she has to read through a book brought from school every night.  It used to be us reading everything.  Now, she is picking up lots of sight words (the, I, am, and) and sounding out more complex words.  She still stumbles over the many insane exceptions and rules that dominate our English language, but we are proud of where she is heading!

And, of course, she still loves to spend her precious moments at home playing with her toys.  Just the other day, she was SOOOO excited that Mommy let her "color" her Barbie's hair (with washable markers, of course.)  Mommy couldn't say no when she had done the very same back in her youth.  We think her creation was pretty darn awesome, but we told her that she couldn't do the same to her hair until at least junior high! 

Snap.Don't

ARGH - we are so tired of contracting random viruses and malware on our computer!  After taking all of the advice from Best Buy's Geek Squad the last time (various downloads of protective software, daily checks, backing up everything, etc.), our computer still got hit with something called "Snap.Do" malware.  Anyway, that is why we have been offline for awhile.  Sorry about that! 

Since it's been so long, we'll take the next three days to catch you up individually on each of the three kiddos.  We'll start with Nevie!  Our little gal is still not rolling, but she is making major headway with sitting on her own.  (Following this schedule, she seems to be much more like Katie...which will have her taking her first steps right around the start of preschool!)  Give her a Boppy pillow or other low-level support, and she's pretty much good-to-go.  On the other hand, she's not doing so well with her solid foods adventure.  We're still working our way through the veggies, but she hasn't quite found anything that she loves yet.  She did willingly open her mouth a FEW times for sweet potatoes, but everything else has taken a lot of work.  (Nothing can eventually be worse than Michael's diet, right?)  Maybe when we start giving her more substantial food to pick up on her own, she'll be more into it.  She is a champion sleeper and napper, so her body is at least getting the sleep nourishment that it needs.  We know that the next 5.5 months are going to bring so many milestones, so we can't wait!!!