Celebrations

I don't have much time to post, but I wanted to acknowledge many celebrations.

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful parents today!  They are a great inspiration to me.  I love you guys so much and I hope you have a wonderful day.

Dave and my anniversary is tomorrow.  We have been married for 6 years.  I can't believe how time has flown by.  It just seems like yesterday that we were dating and then having our wedding.  So much has changed in 6 years.  Our family has grown to four and we are having such a wonderful time (most of the time) with the boys.  My love has truly grown stronger and I feel so lucky to have married such a wonderful man.

Lastly, Happy Birthday to Charisa.  Her birthday is on Sunday.  To many more wonderful years!

Lots of celebrations this weekend.

I don't know if I will have time to post again this weekend, so I wanted to get it all out now.

I am off to get a screaming baby!

9 Month Appointment

I have been a real slacker when it comes to posting.  I just haven't really had the time to sit down and write anything.  I had to post today though because I just took Joseph for his 9 month doctor's appointment.  His 9 month birthday is in 3 days.  Joseph has officially been outside of my body the same about of time that he was inside.  Crazy.  He has grown and development so much.  It is amazing what happens in 18 months.

So here are the statistics:

Height:  28.25 In. (52%)
Weight: 20 lbs. 10 oz (53%)
Head: 46.5 cm (83%)

I always thought that Samuel had a huge head, but it is Joseph with the big head.  I can't believe that Joseph is only in the 50th percentile.  He seems so big to me.  He isn't that much smaller then Samuel was at this time, but the percentages were very different.  Samuel was 29 inches (76%), 22 lbs. 6.5 oz (79%) and 45 cm (42%) for his head.

Joseph has really increased his appetite for food.  He wants to eat everything and is becoming less and less interested in breastfeeding.  If only he would drink breastmilk or formula out of a bottle or sippy cup.  He is not interested in that either.

I was looking back at old posts of when Samuel was this age and I realized that Samuel started military crawling at around 7 months and Joseph is just now starting to get interested in crawling.  I attribute his lack of interest in crawling in being the second child.  When Joseph starts to throw a fit Samuel normally runs over and gives him a toy or his drink or whatever he might want.  I think he is on the verge of crawling though.  The backward pushing is getting better, he just can't figure out how to propel himself forward.  Once that happens, I think we are going to be in trouble.

Samuel has been really funny lately.  He has started to negotiate for things.  When we tell him he can't do something he will try to come up with a compromise.  He wants to play games on my computer all the time now, but I am not comfortable with him doing that unless I am sitting right next to him because he somehow changes settings and I am just worried he is going to really screw up my computer.  The other day he wanted to get on the computer and I told him no and he said "but I need to check my email."  I really had to hold back my laughter.  I always use the excuse that he can't play games because I have to check my email.  He is just too funny.

I am pretty exhausted today, so I am going to have another cup of coffee before I have to pick Samuel up at school.

Aint that some Shi*t

Dave and I decided that we would try something new this weekend. I have been absolutely exhausted lately. I had a little bit of a cold this whole week and I have been trying to fight it off. I have been in some serious need of sleep. As I mentioned before Joseph has been teething and hasn't been sleeping well. He is such a random sleeper. He does however normally wake up at least once a night. For a while now Samuel has been waking up at least once a night too. He will wake up saying that he needs to blow his nose or he is thirsty or lately it has been that he needs to go potty. Sometimes he just screams a little bit and goes right back to bed. On Thursday night Joseph woke up at 2 and wouldn't go back to bed until around 2:45, then Samuel woke up and screamed around 3ish (he went right back to bed), then at 4 George woke me up because she needed to go outside (which rarely ever happens).

Anyway, I haven't had a full night sleep without interruption since before Joseph was born. Face it, when you are 8 and 9 months pregnant you can't sleep through the night anyway because the baby is so big and you have to pee all the time.

So, Dave and I decided that this weekend I would sleep in the basement on Friday night and get a full night sleep and then he would sleep there on Saturday night so he could get a full night of sleep. I woke up at 4:30 and needed to go to the bathroom and I was super happy that I had slept all night until 4:30. At around 6:30 Dave came down stairs with Joseph. I asked him how the night went and he said that both boys didn't make a sound all night and Joseph just got up at 6:30. Are you freaking kidding me?!?!?!?! Of all F*#%ing nights the boys slept all night. Tonight is my night to sleep upstairs and I am sure they both will be up all night just to F with me.

We are off to the Museum of Transportation for the morning. Got to get in an outside activity before it gets super cold here.

More Teeth

What does a screaming boy, sleepless nights, fever, poopy diapers and all around unhappiness equal? Top left middle tooth breaking through the gums yesterday. Joseph hasn't been the most pleasant baby to be around, but now we have an explanation. Joseph slept last night from 7 pm (woke up coughing for about 10 minutes at 11pm, but went right back to sleep) until 5:15. I can't believe that I got 6 hours straight of sleep. It felt great this morning. I guess the tooth coming through made a big difference.

Last night when we were reading Samuel a book he was being adorable. I couldn't help myself so I gave him a really big hug and I said "I love you so much Samuel." He just huffed and said "I know you do Mommy." When did my little boy become a big boy!?

I am about to make homemade chicken barley soup. It is cold outside and we need something warm. I have to do it while Joseph is napping or I will never get it done. I am off.

I think we are officially potty trained (knocking on wood right now). Samuel has gone several days, including a full day at mother's day out and school today without any accidents. He wakes up almost everyday from his nap with a dry diaper. He is still pretty wet when he wakes up from a full night sleep (even though we did have one night that he woke up completely dry). I think for the first time in all my parenting of Samuel, potty training the easiest. He pretty much did it himself. I removed the little potty from all the bathrooms and he stands to pee and sits on the toilet to poop. Aaaah a sigh of relief.

I threw a baby shower for Jonathan and Laura this past weekend. I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of all the cakes and food. We had a great time and I think Jonathan and Laura got some great gifts for their new baby girl. My parents were in town to help celebrate as well and I got a great picture of them with the boys.

My dad carved a pumpkin with Samuel on Sunday. He loved it once again this year. He wasn't as scared of the guts on the inside. I think my Dad was pretty excited about helping Samuel carve the pumpkin too. It was such a beautiful day to be outside and carve.

We went to Trunk or Treat at the MAC for the first time this year. It was actually a ton of fun and I can't wait for next year when Joseph will be able to participate as well. People decorated the trunks of their cars, there was a DJ that played great music, there was food including smores and then the kids went car to car to trick or treat. Samuel was a gorilla and Joseph was a spider.

Pictures and More Pictures

I just can't take enough pictures of the boys lately. They are playing together so much and having so much fun and I love being able to capture it on camera. I try to get videos of them, but inevitably Samuel sees that I have the video camera on and then he want to hold it and look right into the lens and the videos end up not being the greatest.

This week Samuel has been calling me Mommy. He never really called me Mommy before, it was always Mom or Mama. Now all the sudden he is calling me by Mommy. I feel my heart melting every time. Even when he is driving me nuts, when he says Mommy, I can't help it, but my heart just softens. I love it. Samuel has really been curious about where we are going when I am driving. He always asks me which way I am going to turn: right, left or go straight. This weekend when Oma and Opa were in town, Oma would sing the ABC's to Samuel every time he washed his hands. Samuel has been pretty good with his ABC's but could never get through the whole alphabet without getting confused on some letters. Well, he knows them all now. He can also say about 5 words in Spanish. They are pretty simple (even I know them), but I think that is pretty good. It is amazing how much he is learning.

Well, I am off to wake up Joseph and pick Samuel up from school. I don't understand why Joseph usually sleeps for 45 minutes, but when I need to pick Samuel up from school, he sleeps for 2 hours. Amazing timing.

Here are some pictures of the boys:

Busy Weekend

We had a wonderful and busy weekend.

We celebrated Dave's birthday on Thursday, by having Mexican food for dinner and ice cream for dessert. Samuel was so excited for Dave to blow out his candles. On Saturday we picked up Oma and Opa at the airport and hung out and relaxed. Oma made Halloween place mats for us and a train pillow case for Samuel. Sunday we went to see Thomas the Train (see below).

Here are some pictures.

Cute picture of Joseph and George:

Birthday evening. All my boys:

I found out earlier in the week that Thomas the Tank Engine was going to be in Granite City, IL. I got tickets for all of us to see Thomas. Samuel had so much fun with all of us. You can just see his face in all the pictures. I think Joseph had a great time too. The one thing I love about being a parent is being able to experience new and exciting things through my kids. Just seeing the excitement in Samuel's eyes made the event so much fun. Here are pictures:

Here are a few pictures of the house this morning. They are getting ready to pour the foundation tomorrow. It is so exciting.