Trick or Treat

Oliver, Lucius and I went over to bà ngoài (sounds like "baa Y") and ông ngoài ("um Y")'s house for dinner and trick or treating. Lucius decided he'd rather stay in the warmth and comfort to be spoiled happy with his adopted grandparents; while Oliver (dressed in the Dragon costume) and I ventured out together with Casen and his parents.

If you had been out with us this evening you'd be able to tell this little man is his father's son. No one scares him, he's so outgoing. Once we got going he was a blur running from one house to the next, yelling "Trick or Treat" nice and loud. We told him to look for houses with their lights on and off he went.

He walked quite a long time treking door to door. It was about an hour afterward that he started asking to be carried, but still wanted to stop to get a little more candy. We had a blast! So much so, that once we got home and put Lucius down to bed, Oliver and I headed out to a few next door neighbors house to visit and say hi before counting candy and heading off to bed ourselves.

PS. Daddy- just so you know, Oliver REALLY wants to eat the green sucker.

Quotable

M: "Did you have fun tonight with your friends?"

O (rather sad sounding): "No, we just had water & snacks"

Costumes

 

The boys came to work with me to show off their costumes. Who knows if we'll really do the whole trick or treating thing on Sunday- but it was fun to run around the office and explore all the "not really for kids" areas. At least I got a few good photos! 

To see more click over to the Halloween Costume post on my craft blog.

Got kids... Need sleep

Anyone want to borrow a couple of energy filled, runny nosed, stir crazy kiddos?

I hate to complain, so forgive me- but I must admit to my lack of enthusiasm lately. I'm afraid that Lucius is at a super tough age for me right now, mostly because Oliver is at a really FUN point in his childhood. I love finding new activities for us to work on together but we only attempt them if Lucius is napping otherwise he's likely to want to be completely un-helpful. I feel plain awful about this- in fact I HATE that I'm not more in love with this stage of Lucius' development. Mostly because I remember doing SOOOO many things with Oliver that I just haven't been able to accomplish with two children.

Currently we are getting less sleep than when Lucius was an infant. One will more than likely wake the other up, even in their separate bedrooms. Once up it might be an hour or two of talking, crying, you name it. As we attempt to fall back to sleep ourselves, we can't help but overhear a bit of their activities. I suppose I should be grateful that Oliver has been occasionally waking himself up and going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, rather than wetting the bed- one more step in his potty training progress.

I truly LOVE my kids... but thank you for your indulgence. My apologises for bending your ear and venting. I'm off to re-adjust my bad attitude RIGHT NOW.

Marmee Date

 I took the day off yesterday to spend a little one on one time with my favorite 'Oliver'. I miss the special adventures we used to take together. I heard about Arty Pants at a museum, children 3-5 are invited to come spend the morning enjoying an art project, watching a art film, and walking thru the galleries. I realise he's not quite three but that wasn't going to stop me from our Marmee Date. 

We walked thru every gallery to enjoy the colors and sights. Art is great and all, but I don't really understand contemporary art, which is what the whole museum displays. I had a hard time explaining most of it to a two year old, that said- it was a super fun experience. The museum borrowed Oliver a small camera to take photos of people (one of their exhibitions was of portrait photography). He enjoyed a few select pieces in one of the galleries, and we were even able to see a every interesting French artist's work, Yves Klein who used "primarily an ultramarine blue of his own invention, International Klein Blue"

Oliver was able to glue, cut and decorate a book of the photos he'd taken. 

Just before leaving, we sat down to watch an art film. 

I'm super excited to take Oliver and or Lucius out on more indivdual dates.

Pumpkin Carving

Auntie Em hosted a afternoon of Pumpkin carving. The babies and Oliver enjoyed a little play time before digging in. You might be able to see from the expression on Oliver face that he has a thing about not wanting to get messy hands. I suppose pumpkin guts would qualify as a goopy mess.

Afterward, we headed out for a group photo shoot. Attempting to contain so many little ones, it was pure joy to see that no one was able focus on any one photographer at any given moment.

 

 

Pumpkin patch

We had ourselves a family adventure this morning. The misters and I decided to try a new pumpkin patch. I did a little research and found one that had a lot more that might entertain our little ball of energy. Bouncey Castle, Corn Maze, pony rides, and straw bails- what could be more appealing. It's was actually tough to justify spending the five dollars on a pony ride that would take a grand total of two minutes. Until we realized that we were buying an experience for Oliver. The minute he got on he said "I don't have to get off!". He was having a blast on the "horse"... and it ended all to soon. Poor guy- he wanted so much to ride again. He had a blast in the bouncey castle and maybe even more fun in the corn maze trying to find Daddy.

  

Quotable

Oliver and Lucius spent the day at Great Aunt Melanies house.
While driving home I was asking Oliver a few questions:

M: "Did Melanie make macaroni & cheese for lunch?"

O: "Yes, she did! That was such nice"

After a few other questions, randomly and quite out of the blue he said...

O: "I don't have a green mom. 

You're not green, are you? 

But Uncle Warren was green"

I have no idea about that one.

What little brothers are good for

I came home from work and Daddy told me he had taken a fun video while I was away. I was told that in no way was this staged. Oliver climbed into the truck, Lucius crawled over to push it, and away they went from one side of the room to the other. Apparently, when they hit an obstacle Lucius would freak out and start crying. Daddy or Oliver would turn the truck and they were off again. Now I know what Little brothers are for- its too bad my parents never gave me one.

simple pleasures

Oliver's at a really fun age, where everything is new and exciting. I love showing him all kind of things. Of course, Lucius is at the age of exploring and being slightly annoying to those of us who wish to build, for example, a domino line up. I guess we're just going to have to be a little more patient, trying very hard not to get overly frustrated by his constant need to be destructive.

and marvelous things shall come to pass (part two)

It’s hard to type this while also knocking on wood…

I think we’ve hit a turning point in the potty training. Oliver is pooping in the toilet. 

I'll be honest last Friday night, after several messy underwear I was done. I sat Oliver on the toilet and told him to squeeze the poop out. He sat there about 20 minutes (possibly more, maybe less) crying and fussing: "I don't have to poop right now!". I sat in the hall outside the bathroom for a while then moved to a bedroom so I could close a door- and yes, I felt like the worlds worst parent for ignoring my Oliver.  But eventually his body did what it was made to do and we all celebrated that I didn't have to clean yet another pair of underwear. 

There might have been a minor accident this weekend but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, even Thursday evening have all involved successful toilet experiences!!  By Wednesday his time sitting there was down to a minute, rather than the drawn out 20 minutes on Friday. We were doing little plastic animals toys for a reward (first it was stickers) but now all he wants is to go into my “blue cupboard" (where I keep special books) and grab a new story to read before bed. 

He had grabbed a book out of the blue cupboard last night and was still flipping through it this morning. He had turned it over to the back cover where there were other books by that author pictured. We have two out of the three and he wanted the third one which has a yellow cover. I told him maybe we'd look for the third 'yellow' book at the Book Fair we're going to Saturday- if he pooped before bed. Oliver looked up, face beaming and told me "if I squeeze out a yellow poop on the toilet then I'll get that yellow book". He walked straight into the bathroom, and did his business.

Let me just say Jerimy and I are beyond proud of him and joyful at seeing his progress. It was July 15th I wrote "and marvelous things shall come to pass" (part one) blog post; today its October 15th three months later. I realize he’ll still have accidents, I’m okay with that. But I am pretty excited to see him pooping fairly constantly in the evenings.

the leaf pile & a few smiles

 

An acorn conspiracy

Opa just might be a bit of a genius hiding in our midst.

 This afternoon while hanging out at Oma's house, we all headed outside to enjoy the wonderful weather. It was rumored that the DNR would purchase acorns by the bushel, or at least they had at one point in time. A "bushel?" really?! How much is that? Opa brought out a couple of buckets and away we went. Eventually someone googled it and found out a Bushel is 8 gallons. I think between Daddy and I, we managed to fill a 5 gallon tub half full in about 30 minutes. Oliver helped a bit, Lucius crawled through the leaves, and everyone else thought we were a bit crazy.

Secretly, I think Opa just wanted these little nuts off his lawn. Now he's a quarter of a bushel richer and the yard is two & a half gallons acorn-less. I suppose the yummy dinner and enjoyable company is payment enough. Opa- You're welcome!

Cousins

The little misters youngest cousin, Casen, came over for our fun Friday. (He had visited us on wednesday afternoon as well)

There was a lot of jumping, moving, falling as this photo can attest too.

At one point today all the boys were sleeping. I had the house to myself to just relax. Who would have thought three boys could be so peaceful all at the same time. Weird.

completely the opposite

On Make a Mess Monday while Oliver was playing in the water at our kitchen sink, "washing dishes and his animals" with bubbles...

Marmee was cleaning out & organizing a couple of kitchen cupboards and the "junk" drawer so that they now look a little more like this.