Halloween and 8 Months

So, Halloween is probably one of my least favorite holidays. Especially as the neighborhood has taken to decorating with life-sized replicas of Freddy Kruger (sp?) and gunshot victims. Yuck. Anyways, the girls liked it enough for the rest of us. We had Piglet, a ladybug, and fairy/butterfly this year. We started off at the Fall Fest at our church. I never thought we would get Olivia out of the bounce house! Abigail won another Nemo. I think she kind of believes its the same fish she won last year. Then, Jeremy went with the girls to do some treating in the neighborhood. They were only gone about 20 minutes and came back with their buckets full and an extra bucket too. The neighbors were very generous with the candy this year. Now I am off to hide most of it :)

Caralines fav part of the fall fest was this scarecrow. She thought he was hilarious. Jeremy and the girls in their glowing accessories.

Caraline is 8 months today so here are her photos. Still no teeth but she is officially mobile. She can scoot pretty much wherever she likes and is practicing on a more traditional crawl.

October

The girls had a fabulous time at the Clayton Pumpkin Patch this past weekend. It was a balmy 80 degrees. They spent most of their time at the play area, where the three large pools full of fava beans was the main event. Abigail and Olivia pretended to swim and bury themselves. Olivia also did lots of full body jumping in them. Caraline also joined in the fun. She amazingly didn't eat them but really enjoyed playing there. Needless to say I found enough beans in the dryer to make a pot of soup after I did laundry today! We ended the night by eating out which is a treat for us. Abigail declared the grilled cheese dinner "the best ever".

All three girls.

This is what Olivia wore to drop Abigail off at kindergarten today. Don't even know how her face got so dirty...all she did was ride in the stroller! She has her babies stuffed in a bathing suit top.

Abigail lost her first tooth. Another is on its way out. She is very excited.

Caraline at 7 months. She is a pretty happy kiddo!

Olivia jumping into the beans. She did this for hours.

Six Months and Other Fun

Caraline is 6 months old now! We have started her on rice cereal and tried a few days of peas. She is still a very happy baby and loves interacting with her sisters. She is sleeping great and we love her!


One of probably 10 outfits that Olivia went through one Saturday. Most of them involved some configuration of bathing suits, usually Abigails. At one point it was just a firefighters hat and panties. (yes she is pretty much potty trained - she decided about two weeks ago that she had enough of diapers and is doing great)


Olivia eating chocolate pudding in Novato.


One of the joys of home ownership is that our sewer backs up semi frequently due to the combo of old clay pipes and roots in our front yard. This particular night Jeremy was up until midnight fixing the problem. Well, the girls needed a bath before bed so I decided to fill their kiddie pool with bubble bath and they had a ball in the suds. A complete success. I threatened to wash dishes in the pool too but Jeremy made me wait until later.

1st Day of School

Oh my, we have a kindergartner on our hands. Abigail started school at the end of August. She goes to a public school in our neighborhood. So far she seems to like it pretty well. She can't seem to remember anyones name but kids are frequently saying hi to her when we walk her to school. She bravely walks up to her classroom door by herself at dropoff and we are quite proud of her!

Olivia does miss her sister during school, but I have really enjoyed having some time with her!

August

Another great three weeks in Michigan and Indiana were had in August. We started the time with the Novotnys and their extended clan. The photo to the left are all of the kids lined up from oldest to youngest with three little ones sprinkled in there. My girls loved all of the cousins as we call them and had lots of fun. After the Novotnys left we had some time with just the Smiths. Some friends from Indiana also came and visited for a few days. As always, we had a lot of fun. Abigail did some more 'skiing' and even tried the saucer with daddy. She went horseback riding and caught a very tiny fish. Olivia spent most of vacation naked and loved every minute of it. We tried to get her up on the skiis too but she just drank a lot of lake water. I even tried wakeboarding for the first time but don't think I will make a career out of it. Jeremy was in ski heaven. The weather was great, the blueberries wonderful, and friends/family memories made were amazing as usual. Thank you God for lake houses! We ended our time with a few days in Ft Wayne and really enjoyed seeing the Smiths new house, which is beautiful.

July

Here's the newest addition to our backyard. Jeremy has been working on this since Caraline was born and it looks terrific. Still a few more things to do. Our neighbor asked us if we were building a temple. It's just a shed to store all of our stuff in!


Caraline turned 5 months yesterday. She is such a happy baby. Her newest tricks include rolling over, grabbing toys, and she can move herself 360 on her back if she plays for a while on the floor. So she's ready for break dancing.

Yesterday we welcomed my mom home from a month in Bangladesh. She spent the day at Lafayette Reservoir. Gail and Ben brought their kayaks and the girls got to go for a ride. It was a lovely day. Abigail is sporting a wig that Nani brought from Aunt Linda to add to the dressup collection.

Aftermath of a sandy headstand.

Spent last Saturday at the beach, so Olivia had about 5 tons of sand in her body. At one point she was drinking sandy, ocean water from a puddle further up the beach. Lovely! This adds to her current collection of things she has injested from the ground, including cotton candy from her shoe, peanut shells at As stadium, water from the lily pad area at the zoo, etc. It nevers seems to bother her tummy.

We celebrated Daddys birthday last week. Abigail wanted to go to chuck e cheese, but we settle for burritos at home.

Jeremy watched the girls one Saturday morning while I was at a baby shower. They went to Lowes and built binoculars. Adorable photos!