Fall!

The leaves are now all on the ground (and at the curb), and the brisk wind is reminding me that winter is just around the corner. However, just a few short weeks ago, we were in the prime of fall! I think fall is my favorite season. There is something so nice about leaving the dog days of summer behind and being able to layer on the hooded sweatshirts and comfy pants :)

All of these pictures of the boys were taken at the farm. We went outside to play in the leave and take a walk in the woods and I knew the scenery would be beautiful. We're still deciding if we'll use the picture of the two boys sitting in the woods on our Christmas card. It's nearly impossible to get a picture of both of them smiling at the same time so we may not get another picture before then!

Halloween

Trying to catch up (in every aspect of life!). We carved pumpkins a few days before Halloween. Sean was very much into reaching into the pumpkin and pulling the guts out. In fact, he was very much into trying to eat the pumpkin guts. Ian thought it was interesting in there but preferred that I do it for him. I think both pumpkins turned out pretty cute and the boys loved seeing them lit up!

This Halloween Ian really wanted to be a tractor, John Deere, of course! I looked up a few different costumes online and decided several months ago that I could make it pretty inexpensively. I had a box from work 2 or 3 months before Halloween. I even spray painted the box a month or so before! Well, life got in the way and Halloween morning I started the long project of finishing it before Trick or Treat started at 5pm!

With the help of a lot of duct tape, his costume was finished in time to Trick or Treat at Charles' cousins' houses (Kay & Todd and Audry & Dale) before making it back to Janesville at 6:30pm. Mind you, ToT ended at 7pm! Sean was appropriately enough a cow. It was pretty cold so we only went to a few houses in our neighborhood. Ian's costume was fairly heavy and it was difficult for him to walk with so I ended up carrying it between houses. It was nice to have the real working headlights on it to light our way!

Sean's vocab at 16 months...

For my own reference (and because I'm sure I'll forget someday!), these are the words Sean can say at 16 months:

• mama
• dada
• EEE (for Ian)
• Penny (sounds like baby)
• book
• Papa
• gama (for Grandma)
• LoLo (sounds like waa waa)
• hot
• up
• down
• on
• off
• bug
• nose
• eye
• hair
• hand
• bonk (when he bumps something)
• elmo
• Go Pack Go!
• uh oh!
• woah!
• roll
• dada work (for Daddy's at work)
• bye
• hi
• pease (please)
• tank coo (thank you)
• no
• yes
• ball
• what's dat
• milk
• nack (snack)
• teat (treat for Penny)
• tractor
• Percy (the train)
• I'm the map
• truck
• bus
• mess
• clean
• all done
• eat
• yucky
• dance
• rock
• apple
• animal
• meat
• banana
• hotdog (refers both to the food and Micky Mouse)
• animal sounds-
• moo
• baa
• oink
• meow
• woof
• bawk bawk
• rar
• quack

Thresheree Weekend

Every Labor Day Weekend we make a point to go to the Rock River Thresheree. Now for me, this is a new thing. I mean, never as a child did I attend a single event with so many adults wearing overalls. Charles has been going to the Thresheree as long as he can remember! He has many memories of camping there and using his own money he saved up to buy the perfect toy tractor. Now that the boys are a little older, they could really enjoy looking at all the tractors and machines.

The day before we went as a family, Ian rode on Lolo's tractor to bring some logs down there to be cut into boards. It was pretty cold but he loved being on the tractor for the long ride!

At the Thersheree, Ian and Sean were each able to pick out one toy. Ian picked a skid loader and Sean picked a John Deere tractor. It always amazes me how much they love these tiny little toys and just how much they play with them! Sean gets down on the carpeting in the living room and pushes them around, making tractor noises.

We rode the steam train that is fueled with coal. It's a little bit of a stinky ride in my opinion, but the boys love waving at everyone and hear the train whistle blow!

While riding the train, Ian saw this little kiddie train pulled by a tractor and begged to go on it! The guy who owns it just waits till kids come and sit in the cars and then drives it around, no charge! What a nice guy! Ian, of course, picked the John Deere car.

It was a long and enjoyable day and we look forward to taking them to it next year when I think they will love it even more!

Since it's still July...

I can still post this video from the 4th, right?

Sean's 1st Year in Pictures

It has been brought to my attention that I never posted all of Sean's monthly pictures together. So without further ado... Sean's 1st Year!

4th of July Weekend

What a great holiday weekend! It's our first in months that we both Charles and I have had off work and we didn't have any commitments to parties, weddings, etc. We also both had off on Friday, so it was a long weekend, even better :) We decided that since Ian is now 2 1/2 and we had some time, it was a great weekend to start potty training officially!

We built it up for a few weeks by telling Ian that it was going to be time to say "Bye Bye to diapers!" Friday, we just put him right into underwear and let him run around the house like that. We constantly asked him if he had to go potty. He did great and didn't have single pee accident all day. We ventured out to Madison to run some errands and while he did a great job trying to go in a public bathroom, he held it the WHOLE time!

Saturday was the first that he started telling us he had to go potty. Soo awesome!! He had one accident of #2 on Saturday while we were out. He woke up dry that night (although he's been waking up dry pretty much every night for a few weeks) and on Sunday morning he got up and went pee in the potty right away. He's been wearing underwear all the time (except we put him in a Pull-Up when he's outside at the farm a lot. Today we were eating dinner at the farm. We were all outside and all of a sudden he ran into the house. Charles followed him in and he was trying to get his pants off. He sat on the potty and went pee! He's just been doing so great and we're so proud of him!

Apart from a lot of potty talk this weekend, we've been spending as much time outside and together as possible. Yesterday we filled up the kiddie pool, got out the beach ball sprinkler and water table and enjoyed the beautiful weather! The kids enjoyed red, white and blue popsicles (it was Sean's first!).

Today, Charles and I took the boys to the farm and went to see Eclipse. I LOVED it and Charles thought it was pretty good, for a girl movie at least :) When we got back, we went with Jim (Lolo) canoeing. It was Charles, Ian, Jim and I. It was Ian's first time and while he was a little timid at first, he warmed up to it and loved it!

After dinner just before going home, we lit off the firecrackers and sparklers that David gave Sean for his birthday. Ian thought they were a blast and Sean was pretty impressed, too!

All in all, a great weekend with beautiful weather! We're both off work next weekend, too. Hopefully it'll be as great as this one was :)

Green with Envy

I've always been envious (and inspired:)) of those blogs by moms who find all those awesome deals on food and household needs through sales and couponing. They take pictures of their huge purchases that costs pennies on the dollar.

Well guess what? It's my turn! I snagged a couple AWESOME deals this weekend on things that we've been running low on. Toys R Us, Target and Walgreens were my stops. I ran most of these errands after the kids went to bed to it was stress-free and I was able to sift through my coupons and make sure everything rang up correctly. So here is what I bought:

Toys R Us:

*2 packages of the Pull-Ups Night Time Protection (originally $10.99 each) on clearance for $4.11 each, coupled with 2 $2/1 coupon from mail flyer= $2.11 each

*2 Bottles of Baby Blanket Sunscreen Lotion w/bonus travel spray (originally $10.99 each) on clearance for $4.48, also all Baby Blanket Products are on sale Buy 1, Get 1 50% off= $6.72 for two 12oz bottles and two 2oz travel sprays

*Oragel Toddler Plaque Revealing Pre-Brush Gel (originally $3.98) on clearance for $.98, coupled with $1/1 coupon from Sunday Paper, free plus overage ($.02)

*2 Kiss My Face Obsessively Natural Kids Tooth Paste (orignally $6.99 each) on clearance for $1.71 each

*Boudreaux's Butt Bath Moisturizing Body Wash and Shampoo (orignally $11.99), on clearance for $2.98, coupled with $2/1 coupon from Sunday Paper= $.98

*3 Johnson's Buddies Moisturizing Body Wash (originally $3.99 each) on clearance for $.73 each

*3 MethodKid Squeaky Green Body Wash (originally $5.99 each) on clearance for $1.49 each, coupled with Toys R Us $2/any 3 body wash coupon= $2.47 for all 3

*2 Kiss My Face Obsessively Natural Kids Self-Foaming Shampoo & Body Wash (originally $7.99 each) on clearance for $1.49 each and 1 J/A/S/O/N Pure, Natural and Organic Kids Only! Shampoo (originally $7.99) on clearance for $1.49, coupled with Toys R Us $2/any 3 body wash or shampoo coupon= $2.47 for all 3

Walgreens:

*Four 2-liters of Diet Pepsi (originally $1.69 each): On sale with Walgreens Coupon at 4 for $4, coupled with 2 $1/2 manufacturer coupons attached to bottles= $.50/each

Target:

*Pampers Sensitive Thick Care wipes 60-pack (originally $2.39) on sale for $1.98, coupled with $2/1 manufacturer coupon from Sunday Paper= free plus $.02 overage

My total for all of these products was $18.02!!! If I had bought these at full price, it would have been $136.97!! That's a savings of $118.95!!

1 Month Later...

We had the first of Sean's two 1st Birthday Parties exactly a month ago. This was a combined party with Sierra. We hosted it at our house and had lots of wonderful family and friends come celebrate with us! Here are a few pictures...

I'll post pictures from his second party soon :)

Sean is ONE!!

Yesterday, our sweet little boy turned ONE!! We celebrated with a joint 1st Birthday Party for Sean and Sierra at our house. I'll post pictures of that as soon as I get them edited. For now, here is Sean's final monthly picture and his monthly round-up of what he's doing. At 12 months, Sean:

*sleeps from 7:30pm-7:00am

*naps for 1 1/2 hours in the morning and 1-1 1/2 hours in the afternoon

*is entirely on whole milk and drinks the majority of it from a sippy cup

*has added "papa", "hot", "whas dat?", "no no no no no" to his list of vocab

*is doing better at daycare and has grown attached to his teacher

*likes practicing with a fork and spoon

*is a seasoned walker

*pulls himself up on the dining room chairs and will climb ontop the dining room table if you let him

*loves playing with Ian's toys (especially his Mack truck and little matchbox cars) and SCREAMS bloody murder if Ian tries to take them away from him

*loves cell phones, tv remotes, cords and keys

*is into EVERYTHING

*signs "please", "more", "milk"

*loves being outside in the grass, dirt and rocks

Wears a size 18-24months in one-pieces, 12 months in bottoms and 18 months in tops. He has his 12months appointment on Friday so we'll have a more accurate weight then, but I'm pretty sure he's about 23 pounds.

A Sign of the Times...

When we picked Ian and Sean up from the farm today, Betch told us this story. She said Ian had asked when Lolo (Jim) was coming home and Betch said, "maybe we should call him at work and ask him." Ian replied with, "Maybe we should email him."

Unrelated... we were outside this past weekend doing tons of yard work. Charles was pushing Sean around in his red push-car and chasing Ian around the yard. Ian was running so fast that he tripped on a cement block and fell, skinning his chin up pretty good. That night I took a few pictures of Ian because he hair was pretty crazy (I like to call it his Edward Cullen, from Twilight, hair). You can see his war wounds in the pictures.

Buzzz Buzzz!

I took pictures for Sean and Brooklyn's 1st Birthday invitation so I thought I'd share!

Another Ian-ism

Charles is wearing a hooded sweatshirt with drawstrings. He is changing Ian's diaper.

Ian: Daddy, can I see your whoo whoos?

Charles: WHAT?

Ian: Can I see your whoo whoos?

Ian: (pulls drawstring on Charles' sweatshirt and says, like a train whistle) WHOOO WHOOOOOO!

Go Sean!!

Sean took 6 steps in a row today!! ON PURPOSE!!

He's such a little turkey. I know he CAN walk because he'll do it if he doesn't know he's not being held on to. But as soon as he realizes it, he sits down!

Ian: I want to watch Cars.
Me: Ian, I don't know where your Cars DVD is.
Ian: I think the Easter Bunny took it.
Me: Really? Where?
Ian: To Santa!
Me: Why did he do that?
Ian: Because Santa is really old.

Zoo Day, Horray!

I'm a little behind, but better late than never! On April 23rd, we took Ian and Sean to the Milwaukee Zoo and met with Tita Laure and Sierra there!

The kids were so well behaved and had so much fun! Ian liked the lions and the fish the most. Sean and Sierra also really liked the fish! Good thing we're going to the Shedd in a few weeks!

Here are a few pictures from throughout the day!