Happy Halloween!

We are having a great Halloween weekend. Jamie had his Fall break which has made it even more fun for all of us because we get to hang out together for four straight days!!

About a month ago, Isabelle decided she wanted to be a rabbit for Halloween and never changed her mind, so I did my best to make her a handmade rabbit costume. Mark was a chicken and had no clue what was going on, but looked extra cute!

 Boo at the Zoo with some friends.

 A little rabbit snack.

 Mark loved looking around at everything going on.

 Trick or treat....

 Belle's favorite ride! Mark is in the back too (his first carousel ride). He was squealing and smiling the entire ride.

Dad, Belle, and Mark started carving our pumpkins last night while mom went out on the town with some friends. They did an excellent job! We finished the other three today in the nice weather.

 The final product.

Tomorrow we will be taking the kids trick or treating again. Just what Belle needs...more candy. But she is loving all the festivities and mom and dad love sneaking the candy out of their bags (shhhh).

Game on for Mark....

Watch Out! Here comes trouble. Someone was so eager to help me put up our Halloween lights that they started crawling for the first time....

Just Having Fun

Last week we went to our friend's house where Belle got to hang out with George and make Halloween cookies! I also enjoyed hanging out with Anne and Mark had fun with his new buddy, Gus.

Here are the snacks Isabelle and I made to take over. We were having a good time making these! Lately we've been getting really creative with our meals. (Those are witch's fingers on the bottom if you can't tell)

Getting messy while kneading the dough to make it orange.

 Orange hands!! Yeah!

 Rolling the dough.

 Dipping the cookies into chocolate after they baked. They both snuck a few licks of chocolate in this process. Who can resist?

 And finally, getting to eat them! Yum! Thanks for having us over, O'Reilly's!

Having some fun at home while Mark naps in the morning. Here we have princess Isabelle with all her accessories. She even has her high heeled princess shoes on.

Mark eating his book. Nothing new.

Mark checking out all the leaves we currently have falling in the grass. This didn't last long. About 5 seconds after this picture was taken, the leaves started going into his mouth. Again, everything goes into his mouth.

Belle helping us get the garden prepped for next season. She loves wearing her pink garden gloves to help.

Seven Months!

He makes us smile, he makes us laugh, he even puts us through pure exhaustion at times, but we can't stop cuddling and kissing his sweet face. We love our little Mark who turned 7 months today!

 He is changing so quickly! There are quite a few things we love about Mark, but a few of our favorites are:

• When he tries to blow raspberries with his lips and tongue, but nothing really happens
• When he takes his little hand and rubs your neck, arm, chest, or face while nursing
• When you pick him up and he wraps his arms around your entire neck like he's giving an extra big hug and smooshes his slobbery face into your neck like he's kissing you (then grabs your hair)
• When he reaches out for us to be held
• How we have to stick a binky in his mouth to keep him from chewing on everything in sight. This kid will grab anything (that is not his teething toys) and put it immediately into his mouth. We're talking cords, paper, hair, rocks....basically all the safe stuff :-)

 

Mark is the biggest cuddler EVER!  We do look forward to the day when he sleeps through the night, but in the meantime we are soaking up his cuddliness. I have just figured out that at 3:00 in the morning when he wakes up and won't go back to sleep, I just have to snuggle his body right up next mine and he will fall back to sleep within seconds. I know this is probably not going to help things when we move him to the crib soon, but at least we are all getting a little more rest than usual. Last night when I came home from work I saw Mark all cuddled up with Jamie. This boy really knows how to get the love.

We imagine he may be crawling in the next month. He is getting really good at lifting up onto his hands and knees and wobbling. You can tell he is working hard at figuring out how to move once he's in the crawl position.

 

He still gets very upset if you leave his sight, even for 5 seconds, but we love the huge smile he gives us the second we pop back into sight. Happy 7 months little guy!

And I just had to add one more picture of our little diva who is soon approaching 3. That can't be possible, can it?

 

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we had some fun at the pumpkin patch where we picked our four specials pumpkins. Robin and Phoebe were in town and joined us. Isabelle has been learning about the letter P and has been looking forward to the pumpkin patch all week.

 

(My failed attempt at getting all three kids to look at the camera in the bright sun. Maybe next year?)

After all the searching, we found the perfect round, tall, small, and lumpy pumpkin we were looking for. We now look forward to carving them!

AH, I Can't Keep Up!

Life is total nuts. I don't even know what has been going on the past couple weeks, so here I am sitting down to reminisce our past couple weeks. Due to the lack of sleep these days I pretty much only remember what has happened 5 minutes prior.

We have had a birthday party every Saturday for over a month. Only one picture was taken, thanks to Jamie. Here is Mark at his Witch's and Wizard's party. Belle and I were at another party.

 

 Mark and Belle playing together. Mark looks like he should be on Happy Days with the tattoo he got at his party. It was nearly impossible to remove, so he enjoyed it for a few days.

 

 

The binky fairy arrived and took Belle's binky to a new baby and left a new kitchen. They both love it. Mark likes to chew every piece of food Belle cooks. I enjoy picking up a thousand pieces of food, pots, pans, and utensils daily.

 

We're still working on the backyard, but it's starting to look good. Belle is a good worker with dad! 

 

  

I like to put her to work too.

Watching mom move rocks in the backyard is tough work.

Some treats for all the hard work.

 

Such peace. If only this moment could last through the night.  :-)