Trick-or-treat!!!

Austin is out of town for a work leadership training in Michigan this week, so he missed out on trick-or-treating and my dad came with us instead. I was going to email the pictures to him, but figured since I had to do a blog post eventually, I might as well just put them up here first and he can see them this way. The boys were really excited for Heidi to be a care bear for Halloween even though I had pretty much convinced them to be Max and a wild thing from Where the Wild Things Are (I already have the Max costume). But once they saw Heidi's costume they decided that they also wanted to be care bears and so we got a matching set :) Introducing Lucky Bear, Tender Heart Bear, and Sleepy Bear:

 

Trick-or-treating was extremely exciting at first- the boys ran to every house for about the first 1/2 hour, then they started slowing down a bit, and by the end Leif just wanted to ride in the stroller and get home (Heidi rode the whole way since she is too little to go up everyone's stairs and doesn't eat candy anyway) and Asher ended up knocking on the last few doors by himself (our neighbors that knew he has a brother gave him extra candy for Leif). 

 They were so excited to get home and dump all their candy into a big pile and check out what they got. Heidi was excited to dig through it too and just play with it. She was not happy that I put her to bed soon after getting home, but she sure was tired.

Seventeen Months

Little Miss is seventeen months going on seventeen years. She is still a sweet girl who bring sunshine into our home, but she is getting to be quite the handful! Heidi is such a girl! (even though she loves to imitate her brothers by driving cars around with sound effects) She bats her eyes and gives these funny little feminine glances all the time. She loves clothes and shoes and snuggling stuffed animals. She loves to scream like she is being hurt if she doesn't get what she wants (including getting dressed herself instead of me doing it- which, by the way, she hasn't quite mastered). She says new words everyday and occasionally talks in full sentences, the most common being "I want . . ." or "I don't want . . . ". Even with that vocabulary though, she still prefers to just repeat "No" over and over when you have something she wants or when you are trying to give her something she doesn't want. I have worked with her quite a bit to say "please" instead of just demanding something by repeating "no" or "mommy", and she is getting pretty good at it, even if she needs to be reminded a lot.The boys just taught her the word "cookie" today as we were making/eating pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Heidi is great at repeating words you tell her to say, so the boys get a huge kick out of making her say things (sometimes over and over again). They have also tried to get her to say some pretty silly words and phrases, but of course she can't remember the nonsense, so she doesn't say it. Heidi is an incredibly loving little girl. She loves to snuggle and give kisses and gets pretty concerned if she sees someone crying. So even with the girl drama, we love having her around and wouldn't be sad if she gets a sister in a few months (although a brother would be great too ;)
Here are a few pictures of her playing in the back yard today. She loved that I just let her roam around and do whatever she wanted since I usually follow her around every where or trap her onto the trampoline with her brothers. Some of what I call "girl drama" may just be her exerting her independence, but she definitely does it with some girlish flair!

Fall Festivities

I love Fall! I'm so glad it's finally cooling off and I love all the fun activities that go along with Fall. We had a cousin "sleepover" last weekend (which really only turned into Amanda sleeping over) but we had lots of fun before bedtime. We ate pizza, played Halloween Bingo, made monsters from graham crackers, frosting, marshmallows, and sprinkles, and watched a movie with treats.

I also got my little monsters motivated to rake up leaves when we bought a few of the bags that look like jack-o-lanterns. They were very excited to use the rakes too (we have an adult one and a kid-sized one) although they did more spreading the leaves around than gathering them into one pile. But, I was glad for the help to get all the leaves in the bags. We have many more bagfuls of leaves ahead of us this Autumn, but we got a good start on the front yard and added some decorations for Halloween. 

16 Months

Little Heidi Rose is 16 months old! Its crazy to think that this is the age Asher was when Leif was born. Its even crazier to think that Heidi won't be much older when she becomes a big sister. Although I'm pretty sure she has no idea the surprise she is going to get in 3 months, she likes to pat my belly and say "baby" especially if the boys are patting it and talking to the new baby. She is pretty verbal and I've tried to explain to her using one of her dolls, but I think she doesn't really get it. She is so sweet and even-tempered though that I'm sure she won't be jealous.
Heidi's favorite activities lately include opening and closing cabinets and doors. She especially likes opening the under-sink kitchen cabinet where we keep the garbage can, opening the lid, and putting trash in, then closing the lid and closing the cabinet. Its obvious that she is very proud when she does this. She also has an attraction to toilets and toilet cleaning brushes, so we have to watch her carefully to keep her out of bathrooms.
Heidi loves shoes and clothes still. I find everyone's shoes scattered all over the house along with clothes that she has scavenged from dirty clothes hampers. She usually tries to put the shoes or clothes on herself for awhile before discarding them in whatever room she happens to be in. I've tried to remedy things a bit by starting a kids' shoe basket by the back door for the kids to keep all their shoes in. Its helped a little, but she hasn't gotten the idea of putting shoes back in there yet, although I'm sure she will soon since she likes to help clean up. 
Heidi has become smitten with a really soft muslin blanket that Austin bought for her a few months ago. Throughout the day she goes into her room, pulls it out of her crib and drags it around the house intermittently putting it over her head to walk around or wrapping it around herself to roll on the ground. Austin thinks we need to buy another one for her because it looks like she is going to wear it out with all the love and she is so attached to it already, but I thought just buying the one was too expensive, so we'll have to have a good discussion about it. She is also pretty attached to two bunnies that we keep in her crib- one that I bought for her before she was born in the high hopes that I would get a girl someday and one that Austin bought for her on his last business trip (she got a really nice ballerina bunny stuffed animal while her brothers got Russian chocolates- notice a trend of Austin spoiling his daughter? ;) She doesn't drag these around as much as her blanket, but I've had to have the boys do a search several times before nap or bedtime to find her beloved sleeping articles.
Heidi also loves to color and is very often tempted to go sit in her little purple chair at the kids table. We usually keep the markers out of her reach, but sometimes she gets them when the boys have them out.I'm really impressed with her fine motor skills, but I think the boys just didn't develop as quickly because they are boys. 
Heidi is getting a couple molars and finally getting one more front tooth. She loves to get into the freezer whenever I have it open and get out an icey to chew on for a bit. (Or she just gets ice cubes out to play with :)
Here are a few pictures of her from today. She looks very serious in all of them because she was quite involved in what she was doing and didn't want to be distracted for photos. 

Asher's First Day of Kindergarten

Asher had his first day of school today! I think I was more nervous about it than he was and I admit I cried a tiny bit as we left the classroom (where he couldn't see me) but I got over it pretty quick and Asher had a great day by his report when I picked him up. Austin and I both dropped him off this morning. I think he felt special for us to both be there and he loves his backpack and lunchbox.

Here he is at his seat. They were supposed to write their name and draw a picture of his first day of school, but he seemed so overwhelmed that I'm not sure he ever got around to it. When I picked him up this afternoon, he told me all about sitting at the rug listening to "The Three Billy Goats Gruff", having two recesses (by far his favorite part), having snack and lunch, going to music and art, and being friends with everyone (even if he doesn't remember any names). Its pretty typical for Asher to be friends with everyone, so I didn't worry about this part at all. I also didn't worry about him listening to his teacher, I just thought he might have a hard time sitting still for so long. But he seems to have liked it and says he is excited to go back on Thursday.

15 Months

Little Miss just keeps growing and learning new things. She is quite proficient at walking now, so she likes to practice walking all over the house. She has developed a love of shoes- her own and others. If she finds her own shoes, she will carry them over to me to put them on her and if I don't acknowledge her immediately, she says "soo, sooo, soo" over and over. She also loves to carry around any other shoes she finds in the house. I've found her trying on the shoes of other family members and brings me my shoes/flip-flops several times a day and won't let me get away without putting them on. As of right now, she only has one pair of shoes that fit her, its going to be chaos when she gets several pairs at a time. Heidi's fine motor skills seem to be developing at a much faster rate than her brothers'. She loves to sit at out little kids' table and color with crayons (although I still catch her eating them sometimes too). She is also pretty good with her eating utensils too. The fork is the easiest since she can spear food and it is unlikely to slide off, but she is pretty good with a spoon too. Of course, there is still often quite a mess to clean up afterward, but she is very determined to use her utensils. Heidi loves to brush her teeth and comb her hair. If we ever accidentally leave the kids' bathroom door open, Heidi goes in, climbs up on the little stool, and tries to grab her toothbrush. One of the boys or I usually have to get it for her, but she loves to stand and brush her teeth. Its a good thing she is so keen on oral hygiene because although she only has six teeth total in front, she has already sprouted a molar and I can feel two more on their way. She will always let me brush her teeth in the morning and before bed, but she also insists on a turn afterward. Same thing with combing her hair- she will happily let me do it as long as she gets her turn afterward. She is also getting good at helping get herself dressed by always pushing her arms and legs through into her clothes. If an article of clothing is near her, she will try to put it on. I've found her a few times trying to put a shirt on her legs- at least she actually got her leg into the sleeve :) Heidi is adding new words to her vocabulary, but still prefers the word "no". She uses it as a way to express her displeasure, as a way to let you know you have something she wants, or just as something to say for fun. She also loves to shake her head no or nod it yes, sometimes with the proper meaning and other times just because she's being silly.
Here are a few pictures Austin took of her today while she was in an extremely good mood (she had been playing with her cousins and brothers all day, then just woke up from a nap here)

Oregon Vacation

This post may be a bit of a picture overload, but we took a lot of pictures on our vacation to the Oregon coast and the kids are so happy in all of them, that I had to share. The kids LOVED the beach and the ocean even though it was pretty cold (this is one of the beauties of going to Oregon in the dead of summer). The boys constantly wanted to go get wet and all three kids enjoyed the sand. Heidi spent much of the time outside in our hiking pack on Austin's back, but she was a good little trooper and didn't complain much- she was just happy to be out and seeing what was going on.
 The pictures are kind of unorganized because of how they were uploaded, but I tried to arrange them a little.

This is the house that we rented in Seaside. It was a bit of a last minute deal since the house we rented earlier was sold and our reservation was cancelled, but it wasn't too bad of a house.

 Asher and Leif slept on a pull out bed in the living room (there were two, but they opted to share one)


 Heidi slept in a pack & play in our bedroom. She fought going to bed every night because she wanted to stay up and be part of the fun, but once she fell asleep, she was out!

Like I said earlier the boys loved the beach! They ran around like crazy kids, loved getting wet, liked finding little things that the tide brought in, and loved the sand. Leif's only complaint as we left after our first visit was that we didn't see anything alive, so we took them to the aquarium the next day.

It was about a 3/4 mile walk from our house to the aquarium, most of it along the Promenade (the sidewalk that runs parallel to the beach). We had to stop for a few rests, but they made it without too much fuss.



Once we got to the aquarium the first thing we did was throw little fish to the seals. Unfortunately, we didn't get any photos of this, but the boys really liked that. They also got to touch and see lots of different sea creatures, and to Leif's delight, they were alive!





Here is Little Miss riding along with Dad.

And some more pictures of fun on the beach



We made a trip out to Tillamook to see the Cheese Factory. This is the only good picture I got (notice the determination on Leif's face) but we got to see Tillamook cheese being cut up and packaged (the machines were very exciting for the boys) and eat Tillamook ice cream (which was very exciting for me) :)

We also rode a little train from Rockaway Beach to Garibaldi and back.

Even Heidi was very excited to look out of the train and see everything as we passed.

We spent some time in Cannon Beach. We went once while the tide was low to see the tide pools. The kids were able to see some of the sea creatures they did at the aquarium, but this time in "real life". This was neat for them, but they were more enchanted by the water sand that sunk slowly as they stood in it. They liked to wiggle their feet and sink a little more quickly so they could pretend it was quick sand.

Here they are checking out one of the many sea stars. Most of them were purple, but we saw a few orange ones too.

You can't really tell, but this rock is covered with sea anemone and oysters.

We let Heidi play in the sand some too, I just hand to rinse her as soon as we got home since lots of it got down her diaper. She was delighted to get to play with her brothers and was even pretty good to not eat the sand (like she does in the sandbox at home)(I just realized it looks like she is eating sand in the picture below, but she wasn't). These are all pictures from Indian beach which was near Seaside, but took a little more driving and a tiny bit of hiking to get to. There were also tide pools here, but the kids were more interested in the water and sand.

 

Some of our time in Cannon Beach was in the actual town walking around and looking in the little shops (or taking pictures with large puffins) :)

One of my favorite happenings was when we stopped at a bakery to get treats (I had been looking for one for a few days really wanting the boys to have fun eating donuts) and Leif insisted on getting a loaf of sour dough bread. I kept telling him to pick a donut, but he refused. I thought he would be upset after he got it and realized that although it was huge, it wasn't sweet like what everyone else got, but he was as happy as a clam with his choice.

Here are the boys enjoying their treats and the view at a little outdoor counter.

One of the best things about the Oregon coast is the beautiful scenery all along the road. We stopped here for a few pictures.

We stopped at Austin's grandparents' house both on the way to Oregon and on the way back (it was a really long drive and we needed a rest!) The kids loved seeing their great grandparents. They love visiting, playing with the old toys, seeing the farm equipment, and the treats Great Grandma gives them. As we were driving home I asked the boys several times what their favorite part of our vacation was, and they both shouted enthusiastically "seeing Great Grandma!"
Next time we'll stop in Idaho and save ourselves the hassle of taking them to Oregon :)