Trick or Treat

A 1st for this family. This was the 1st year that our boys stayed up late enough to go trick or treating. Costumes on, pictures taken & we were off to collect candy. Our Spiderman was so excited to put on his outfit & get going. But by the 4th house he turned to me & said "I wanna go home". I guess he had enough of saying trick or treat, thank you & Happy Halloween. But we did convince him to keep going for another 30 minutes. He just happily walked along holding daddy's hand & talking to him about the decorated houses. The boys would walk up to the house holding daddy's hand & say their bit & then walk away. Please take note of the scary guy they collected candy from. Afterwards Johnnie commented that he didn't like that man. I didn't either. Our baby dinosaur refused to wear his hood but he enjoyed the rest of his costume. After collecting candy he would try unwrapping each piece & put it in his mouth before we could stop him. After awhile he didn't hold out his bag anymore but rather just his hand & say "treat".

Our little pumpkin was such a trooper & stayed up an hour past his bedtime. Isn't he the cutest little pumpkin you have ever seen? He was carried most of the night by Auntie Kim & occasionally by his princess mama (Johnnie kept asking me to be a princess so I obliged by wearing my wedding tiara- don't get me wrong... I love to pull it out & wear it!) And after 3 attempts at a family photo (with no luck) we decided to call it a night & head home to put the boys to bed & get some dinner.

Hope your evening was full of candy, tricks & treats & lots of smiles!

Our Local Pumpkin Patch

There was no petting zoo, no hay maze, no corn pit & no extras, but it was a great day. The boys didn't even notice that all these extras were missing. They were only aware of the fact they were allowed to run around the entire pumpkin patch without a parent telling them to stay close & slow down. They had free run of the entire patch for an entire hour. Everywhere Johnnie went & everything Johnnie did, his baby brother Joey went & did as well. And Jimmy joined in when he could.

Johnnie took choosing a pumpkin very seriously. Just look at the concentration of those pursed lips. He must have looked at every pumpkin 3 or 4 times & in the end daddy needed to push him to choose one. And once he moved on to the next area to look at pumpkins Joey would come along & touch the same pumpkins & mimic his big brother's actions. But he did get a little distracted by the hay. They discovered this wagon & had daddy pull them all through the patch. After a little while they asked for Jimmy to join in who happily obliged. And then once they were bored with this they moved on to a wheelbarrow. Jimmy found this little pumpkin to entertain him once his brothers ran away again. And of course no outing is complete without the attempt at getting a family photo. Again no easy feat with three little ones who would rather be doing anything else but I'm glad we do it. I love the idea of looking back at these photos when the boys are all grown up & seeing what our family looked like all those years ago!

Our Little Pumpkin

You are 8 months old now. We celebrated with a visit to the local San Pedro Pumpkin Patch. With Rick feeling under the weather we decided it would be easier to & more fun to go somewhere that is enclosed, less crowded & happy to let the boys run around. Check back soon to see the rest of our Patch visit. For now lets talk about our boy. Crawling like a champ. So fast in fact that we often turn around to address one of his brothers & turn around to find him gone. Therefore the baby gates are back. Each day we feel truly blessed to have a baby who is just so happy ALL the time. It's hard to believe sometimes just how happy he is. Always smiling, giggling, rocking back & forth with joy & just brightening the day of each person he comes in contact with. Especially his mama (& his daddy but he was busy with your older brothers so I didn't get a pic of you with him alone.) And his aunties who never miss a special outing. He now pulls himself up to a standing position to play with his brothers & he's getting very close to cruising along the furniture. Still loves his hands in his mouth & basically just seems to love life. We love you baby boy!

Ten on Tuesday

1. Our House. Taken one evening after work as I was chasing the boys down the block.I spend so much time inside of it that I often forget what the outside of it looks like.2. On October 3rd I walked in to get Jimmy after naptime & saw this. The beginning of him trying to pull himself up to a standing position. 3. And a second later a happy baby who did it. Definitely time to start putting the crib gate up. 4. Jimmy's first wagon ride. Johnnie rode his tricycle in front of the wagon on our walk but climbed in for the picture when we came home. I see a lot of wagon walks in our future. 5. On Monday, October 5th I walked in to wake the boys up for "school" & didn't find Johnnie in his bed but rather laying with Joey in his. So I ran downstairs to get my camera before they woke up & I'm so glad I was able to catch them sleeping so soundly next to each other.6. Rick & I went out to dinner last month with friends & I'm just now getting around to posting the photo of us. 7. We went to a birthday party a few weeks ago for twins who turned 5 years old. Lucky us (or I should say lucky boys); they were the proud recipients of this car track that the big boy no longer wanted. After setting it up Johnnie started pulling the cars out, Joey climbed inside & Jimmy wanted to figure out how to climb over it to get in the middle. 8. Getting close. I got 2 boys to look at the camera.9. Now that Johnnie got his cars set up to race he was willing to look up. Now if Jimmy could just figure out how to get inside.10. This last photo is a photo from Auntie Kayci's birthday last week. Say Cheese!

How Do You Choose?

Every week I take a photo of Jimmy. Have done it for each of my boys to keep a memory of how much they change during their 1st year. I usually take around 3-5 pictures & then I choose the best picture for the scrapbook. Usually it's easy because there is usually one photo that stands out as just him & sometimes because there is only one good photo. But occasionally I take a series of shots (4 in this case), upload them on to the computer & LOVE every one because they are the perfect snapshots of his personality. In these he is just so happy, giggly & wildly excited to be playing cars with his brothers. And it just shows what he is like most of the day as long as he's not tired & is well fed. Thank you for your smiles & for making my choice for the week tough.

A Boy & His Trike

It was a lovely Sunday afternoon. A little cool, overcast & quiet. Jimmy was napping & Joey was off getting a haircut so Johnnie & I played outside together. He rode up & down the block chasing after me & pedaling away from me. Look at the face. When was the last time you had this much fun? And weren't afraid to show your emotion with your mouth wide open, yelling "I'm going to get you mama!" As long as you're this happy about it I will let you catch me everytime.

10 on Tuesday-Johnnie

1. I wanted to share some more of the photos taken during Johnnie's birthday week. We decided to have his birthday party at his daycare center with his preschool classmates since he spends all day with them & these are the friends he constantly talks about. Here is a photo of all the kids eating cupcakes & if you can enlarge the photo please notice the funny face Rick is making.2. On Johnnie's actual birthday my family came over to celebrate with dinner, cupcakes & gifts. Johnnie seemed shocked that we turned the lights off & lit the candle.3. Here he is blowing out his candle. Hope he made a wish but in case he didn't I made some wishes for him. Probably much different than the ones he would wish for himself but either way they would all make him happy.4. Sharing his birthday with his 2 brothers. Don't worry we did give a cupcake to Joey & poor Jimmy really wanted one. He kept bouncing up & down trying to get to one but sorry baby you have to wait 5 more months to get one, but I promise it will be worth the wait!5. Once again family & friends were too generous. I requested only 1 gift from family members including his very missed family back East but as you can see that didn't happen. It did make him smile though as he unwrapped each gift & for the 1st time he seemed to really understand that each gift was for him & from someone he loves.6. Johnnie wanted to play with these MagnaTiles as soon as dinner was over. If you have never seen them I highly recommend them. They are tiles of all different shapes surrounded by magnets. Johnnie LOVES them. He will sit still for long stretches of time building creative little structures on his own or with help. And if you know our boy you know this is no easy feat...getting him to sit still. So I say again. We LOVE these things. 7. On the Monday after his birthday Rick & I took Johnnie to Disneyland all by himself. As always we started on Johnnie's favorite ride. The carousel. I rode with him long enough to get a picture & then Johnnie had me move to my own horse.8. After getting off a ride that made Johnnie beg to go home because we spent the whole time in a dark tunnel (Alice in Wonderland) we were able to make him happy by letting him try & open this little door but then he became a little upset that he couldn't open it. What's a parent to do?9. A close up of my favorite guy & one of my favorite boys.10. The last picture of the day. Lots of people are always asking me who Johnnie looks like & I think he looks a little like both of us but I think this picture shows how much my first born looks like me. We hope you had a wonderful birthday weekend my love! Thank you for blessing us with each hug, with each show of strength of your personality, with each gentle touch toward your baby brothers, your tackles, your tantrums, your laughs & just you! We love you!