Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween this year! Calder & Tessa's school had a party on Friday that I was able to attend. Here's Calder's class during the school parade. They came out singing -- it was too cute! Unfortunately, I didn't even think to take a video until they were done singing. :(

We finally carved our pumpkin this morning! I told Calder it was his job to come up with the design for the face -- he was so excited.

Posing with the finished product. He name him Jackal the Jack-o-Lantern!

6 Halloween Cuties!! Our friends Alex and Aubrey stopped by to say "hi" before trick-or-treating.

My fireman and my little strawberry!Strawberry Shortcake plucking a sweet strawberry!
Here's the whole trick-or-treating crew. Calder happily took candy from each house, but when we got to the house that was handing out raisins -- his eyes completely lit up and he looked at me and said "Can I eat them??" That's my boy!!

Tessa Crawls!

Tessa started crawling on Monday. It's sort of an army crawl, so thankfully she doesn't move too fast quite yet. She can get up on all fours, but then when she tries to move she can't keep her bottom half raised up.

Tessa Crawls! from courtney on Vimeo.

First Word

Who gets the honor of Tessa's first word? Yep, Daddy. She first said "dada" about a month ago, but then we never heard her say it again until about last week. Now, she says it all the time, and even seems to be looking in his direction when she says it!

Steeler Beauties!

If the Steelers ever decide to start up a cheerleading team, here are 3 excellent candidates! :)

9 Month Stats

Tessa finally had her 9 month well visit today, and here are her stats:

Weight: 20 lbs even (72 %tile)
Height: 28 1/2 inches (82 %tile)
Head Circumference: 44 cm (52 %tile)

She's definitely slowed down in the weight dept, going from the 84th percentile at 6 months to the 72nd. This is definitely due to her dislike for baby food and her recent bottle strike at daycare. Her pediatrician wasn't worried though and chalked it up to a little bit of stubbornness. I'm not worried either, since what she's not eating/drinking at daycare, she's been making up for with middle of the night feedings! Yes...I'd be happier if she were sleeping through the night like she used to...but hopefully we'll get back there soon enough. We think we've figured out that she'll drink her milk from a sippy cup better than from the bottle, so we're giving that a try this week at daycare.

Cox Farms

We've been hitting lots of pumpkin patches/fall festivals this fall. It's definitely one of my favorite things to do this time of year! We went to Cox Farms at the end of September, when my mom was visiting for the weekend. It's usually totally insane there on the weekends, but we went on an overcast Sunday and it was amazingly empty!!

My little hatchling!

Calder loved the slides. Especially this castle themed one. I can't even tell you how many times he went down this one! He definitely asserted his independence by insisting that I wait at the bottom while he ran up the hill and slid down by himself over and over and over.

Little piglets -- just a few days old!

Mmmmm....hay!

Happy 3/4th Birthday, Tessa!

Happy 9-month Birthday to Tessa! Life is definitely changing around our house. Although she's not crawling yet, by no means does she stay in one spot. She'll roll and scoot herself all over a room in no time flat. This weekend we learned the hard way that having a preschooler in the house takes baby-proofing to a whole new level. It's a constant battle to try and keep all of Calder's toys and 'stuff' picked up and away from Tessa. Yesterday evening she managed to find one of Calder's stickers and stuffed it into her mouth without us noticing. When I started nursing her, she began gagging and vomiting. Dave saw the sticker in her mouth, but it became wedged way in the back of her throat. Obviously, we freaked out, and ended up calling 911. By the time the paramedics arrived, she seemed to be fine...but as a precaution, and on the advice of our pediatrician, we had them take her to the ER to make sure it wasn't stuck in her esophagus. Soo...Tessa got her first ambulance ride at 9 months of age. Let's hope it's also her last! She checked out fine at the ER, so we were back home in less than 2 hours.

Aside from that excitement...she continues to grow so fast! She's pretty stable in a standing position now... ...but can't quite get herself there by herself yet. She gets one foot in position, but isn't quite sure how to maneuver that second foot.
She loves to hang out in big brother's bed...
...but she's not sleeping quite as well as she once was. She frequently wakes up about a half hour after she goes to bed and, lately, one more time during the night. We do occasionally get a night where she sleeps through, so I am thankful for that! Happy 3/4th Birthday, sweet girl!

Dinnertime

Dinner! from courtney on Vimeo.

Here's what dinnertime sounds like at our house lately.

Pals

Wickedly Cute

Potty Training, Schmotty Training.

**Disclaimer: Underwear used in the making of this photograph was clean. At least I think so.

Potty Training. Ugh. I was just perusing old posts, and was horrified to discover that Calder first peed on the potty 13 months ago. 13 months ago! And he still isn't potty trained! And frankly, it's not going so well. Well, it's not going so well at home. If it wasn't for the fact that he pees on the potty all day long at school, I'd totally assume that he's just not ready and give it up for a month or so. But he has been peeing on the potty at school for several months now and has been accident-free at school for about a month. At home...not so much. He consistently resists using the potty at home. Except, of course, after he's been in bed for a half hour or so -- then he's more than willing to tell us that he needs to use the potty, because it's a grand excuse to get out of bed, and one that he knows we won't deny him (for the record, I guess it's really not technically an excuse, because he always goes.) Sometimes we get ambitious and put him in underwear at home...but then he usually just ends up going in his underwear (or worse -- going #2 in his underwear) and then maybe he'll tell us about it. Clearly, we're doing something wrong.... Any chance there's a magic potty fairy out there? If you find her, send her my address.

Fun in CT

A couple of weeks ago, my mom and I (and kids) took a really quick trip to CT to visit my Grandma. It had been almost a year since my last trip up there, so she hadn't met Tessa yet. We had a really nice time, although the visit was too short (~24 hours). Tessa hangs out with her Great-Grandma. After all the effort to try to get the kids to look at the camera for pictures -- this was the only one where Grandma was looking!!Calder was getting a little too wild for my Grandma's small house, so we went off to find a park so he could burn some energy. I happened to see some signs for a nearby farm that was offering pony rides, so I decided to check it out! We were the only ones visiting the farm, and it was actually outside their normal pony ride hours...but they said they could do it anyway. As the woman went off to get her son, we waited patiently by this "pony".

I realize now that this is, in fact, a donkey. But, it was right there by the entrance, so I had just assumed this was what he was going to ride! When they brought out the real pony and I saw how big he was, I started having second thoughts! I thought for sure that Calder would back out once he saw the real pony ("Cloudy"), but he didn't! He hopped right on, and away they went! Calder thoroughly enjoyed his first pony ride, and I think Cloudy did too!
The guy was also nice enough to give me directions to a fantastic nearby park! Calder had a great time and became instant friends with all the other little kids playing there. And to top it off, he conked out for a much-needed nap only minutes after getting in the car to head back to Grandma's!

A day at the amusement park

A few weeks ago, Dave's company had their family fun day at an amusement park that's about an hour away. It was Calder's first amusement park experience, and he loved it! We spent the whole day in the kids section, so we didn't get to do any wild rides ourselves, but it was great fun to experience the excitement through Calder's eyes.

I'm officially a 'soccer mom'!

We enrolled Calder in soccer through the local rec department for the fall. It's not actually a soccer team - it's more of a class. So far it's going ok -- it's an hour long session on Saturday mornings, and it usually holds his attention for about half of that time. Sometimes he'll decide he just wants to sit on the sidelines, and other times he just wants to go off and play on his own, away from the other kids. The class is for 3 and 4 year olds, so he's definitely on the younger side. They actually 'scrimmaged' last week, and there was exactly 1 kid in the class who 'got it'. He ran back and forth scoring goals while all the other kids ran around in circles wondering why there was suddenly only one ball to play with. :) So far, Calder's favorite part is getting to knock over the cones with the ball. It's fun and cute to watch, and Calder seems to like Coach Simon.

First Soccer Class from courtney on Vimeo.

Oops...forgot one

I can't believe I forgot to include a picture of the uninvited guest who decided to join us in the pool during our vacation....
Yep, he slithered right in while we were all in the pool! Mind you, this happened very early in the week, and only shortly after we discovered Calder's lack of love for the ocean. I thought for sure this was going to be the end of it for him, and that we'd spend the rest of our vacation cooped up inside watching Toy Story over and over again. But, luckily the meltdown was brief and after Daddy the Hero removed the snake from the pool, he happily hopped back in. :)