Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving! We certainly did. We did my parents house first then we headed over to Mike's parents' house. Think 2 ginormous turkey dinners in the span of 3 hours. It was awesome! The boys had a great time visiting all their relatives. Now today we continue the tradition of the Ladies Lunch in Geneva (with Sam since he's my sidekick most of the time) and the Dudes Lunch. This year the locale for the Dudes has changed from Hooters to the Tilted Kilt so that they could fit in a trip to the Bass Pro shop. Perhaps there will be pictures to post... we'll see!

4 months old!

So, as my dad pointed out in the previous post, it's Sam's 4 month bday! Good thing dad said something too, because I totally would have forgotten (sorry baby #2!) Sam at 4 months is a lot of fun. He is starting to roll over both ways, though not consistently. He is regularly sleeping through the night 9pm-6am. He eats well with mommy, but still not so well with the bottles. He still has blue eyes. He has a cute grunty laugh, much different from Noah's gaspy baby laugh. He LOVES watching Noah run around. And last, but not least, it appears that his hair is starting to lay down more. We expected it around now, about the same time Noah's hair laid down. Here are pictures of Sammy today...

Don't know his current stats, but we go to the doctor in a week and a half. I'm sure he's chubbed up quite a bit! I think he's starting to look more like me, but we'll see!

For a frame of reference here is Noah at 4 months. Some similarities, some differences...
And what is this little devil up to you ask? Well the honeymoon is over, he was staying in his bed until we got him up in the morning and from naptime. I know, it's weird and most kids are bouncing out of their beds as soon as they wake up. But not Noah, he would call out "Mommy, wherever you are?" But today he got up himself after nap... uh oh. Would you trust this monkey running amok in your home? Methinks not...

My Boys Heart TV

So the big news of the week is that Noah went #2 on the potty. I'll save you the details, but it was a big deal and he had been talking about it for weeks. As a reward, he got a Handy Manny phone, which he was excited about. He loves Handy Manny and we catch it most mornings super early on Disney Channel.

Sam is exhibiting supernatural stretching/rolling/bending skills in order to see the TV nowadays.

Yep, Sam loves the Curious George. Of course he loves the Sports Center too, well anything with flashy colors will do.

Not to leave you thinking our boys just sit around slack jawed staring at the tube until their brains rot.... Noah is doing his best scientist daddy impression with the glasses. Pretty good, eh?

Escape to the Lake!

We came to Thursday this week, which is usually our Evie day, and Noah was rocking a 101 fever. So Evie stayed home. Faced with the prospect of handling the 2 boys and a time change prep on my own while Mike worked, I decided to make a run for my parents lakehouse. It was a lovely weekend of fort building and Wii playing.

Sam has had cradle cap on and off for awhile. This weekend I decided to treat it with some petroleum jelly on the scalp. This resulted in some awesome hair styling fun. My dad said he looked like a certain german dictator... perhaps...

We did a little seasonal maintenance around the house. This included removal of the abandoned birds nests from the deck area. Noah was pretty impressed with the bird houses.

Noah's lack of appropriate winter gear for raking resulted in a Dollar Store trip. He ended up with a pair of spiderman slipper socks.

And a Spiderman hat/mitten set. Pretty lucky boy!

While the boys didn't get the memo about the time change (Noah was up at 4am on Sunday, and Sam reverted to waking up once at night to eat), we had a great time and it was a welcome break for mommy. Thanks Bamma and Bampa!

Halloween Part 3

Finally we arrived to the big day itself, Sunday. Noah was still excited about being Spiderman, and he got to put all the full ensemble for the first time, which was quite thrilling. Again the ability to maintain character for nearly a full 8 hours was impressive.
And Sammy was happy about being a peapod. Or he was happy about eating or having a clean diaper, but who cares because HOW CUTE IS HE?!

Seriously, will I ever manage to get a good picture of the two of them looking at me, probably not for another 3 years.

Daddy played the part of quasi-batman for awhile with a cape and hat. Look how excited Noah is, too funny :)

Heck, this might actually be one of the first publishable family pictures.

We drove to my parents first and had lunch, then trekked down to Chicago Ridge to trick-o-treat with the cousins Nick and Francesca. Noah was so excited to see them and to learn all about the thrill of candy getting.

And then we went back to my parents house to "help" hand out more candy. He was so wired by the end of the day. Can't wait till Christmas!

Halloween Part 2

So, on to Saturday night. Mike worked on Saturday, so Noah and I plotted all day as to what we should carve for our jack-o-latern. If you've seen previous posts, you know how creative Mike can be. Noah ended up deciding he wanted a Captain America pumpkin. So on Saturday afternoon he and I looked up some pictures on the computer for inspiration. When Mike got home, we started the process. Sam was a somewhat active participant (basically forced to sit there and watch for parts).
Noah was responsible for keeping track of the pictures that were the inspiration. He was patient for awhile...

But of course he had to get involved. So he got to "clean" the pumpkin for daddy.

Then he supervised as I de-gutted the thing (he wasn't too keen on digging out the ooey gooey stuff). And he sat on the floor and watched as Mike started carving.

Mike painstakingly carved and peeled for over an hour while Sam napped, Noah played, and I gave Ellie a bath. Finally it was finished. Why both boys made snarly faces at me, I don't know...

Here is the final product. I was more than impressed. Noah's response after daddy toiled over this thing just for him? "I want spiderman." Typical 2 year old changing his mind after the fact. Oh well!

Halloween Part 1

I hope you all had a lovely Halloween! We certainly did :) I'll probably do 3 posts from the weekend festivities. First up, Saturday. Mike was at work, so Philie and Stan generously offered to let us tag along to the Palatine Park District party. It was so cute and perfect for Noah sized kids...

He got to do a craft and run around and play with Fred (the tiger)...

Note the hands on the hips by Noah, he stayed in serious Spiderman character the entire time...

Cal rocked the stroller with Sam (who slept most of the time). He was a "builder guy" according to Fred

The older boys had a great time playing games and watching all the other kids in costume. So fun!

William Shatner beware, Noah is fast becoming the king of over acting...