Zoo Trip

Blake and I have been commenting on the difference between the number of pictures we have taken of Emmy and the number of pics we've taken of Beckett.I think I have 75 (literally) pictures of Emmy's first trip to the zoo and all I have of Beckett's is the ones below, all of which could've been taken anywhere.

Beckett reacted to the zoo, like any 3 month old reacts to the zoo.. he didn't give a crap =) He was just extra cute in his button up (I've pretty much decided he will be dressed in button ups from now on he's so cute in them.) and hung out while Emmy fed the giraffes. While Emmy and Blake rode the carousel, I took extreme, up your nose close -ups of B in his stroller. This one pretty much sums up how he felt about that =)

The weather was gorgeous and it was nice to have Blake during the week, so we'll call it a success!

A Sprinkle for Easton and meet the (great grand) parents

We just HAD to take a little time to celebrate Baby Easton, who is set to make his grand arrival anyday now! The besties all came to town for a "Little Monster" brunch and pedi party (The best kind!) From this pictures you can't tell that there were only 4 of us at the party! The sewing ladies were at it again! Unfortunately all I ended up with was a bunch of pictures of Beckett and the girls. He's a ladies man!

Later that night, Beckett got to meet his Great Grand parents, Maw Maw and Paw Paw, and Great Aunt Jane for the first time.

The Pledge

Yesterday Emmy brought home a "happy gram" from school saying that she was an excellent flag holder during the Pledge at school. I honestly had never thought about even teaching her the Pledge of Allegiance....she's not even 3 =) I asked her about it and she said "yeah.. and then bust into the pledge!

It really makes me wonder what else she knows that we have no clue to even ask her about. She remembers EVERYTHING anyone says and will recall details about things I've forgotten. For example, we have been going to the library for about two months now every week or so and getting 6-10 new books everytime. I really just let her pick whatever books she wants without screening them too much so sometimes we end up with a few interestingones (ie. I'm adopting a little brother from Mexico, dying dog, books in Spanish). So one of the VERY first times we got books there was one named Searching for Mr. Woodcock that fell into the wierd category. THis last week we got another "Wierd" one that was too wierd to even read. I told her that this one was wierd and she said " oh, like mr. woodcock." SO strange that she remembers that one book out of the tons that we've read. I had even forgotten about it. It took a while for me to figure out what she was saying. I'm thinking that she's a little smarty pants!

Proof these are Blake's kids... not that we needed any =)

So there are some traits that are distinctly Vacek. The most distinctive is the Vacek Open Mouth. This means that you're having a REALLY good time! Blake and Megan and Bob all do this and every single one of the grandkids does as well. It has to be genetic.
When Blake is concentraing he also has a hard time keeping his mouth shut. Emmy's new obsession is cutting. The other morning we cut up old magazines for two hours. That's an AMAZING amount of time for something to hold her interest. Usually it's about ten minutes if you're lucky. I like to call this "Concentration Tounge," inherited directly from her father. They're his for SURE!

And since I called out Blake, here's proof that they're mine =) a strong ability to run into ANYTHING, no matter how big or obvious it is. Sometimes she'll just fall down while she's standing.

And major eye tone... I don't think I need to explain that!

Cupcakes: 2 Months

The tradition continues. These were a little better received.

This was the designer issue of "monthday" cupcakes- Polo outfit and Crave cupcakes. If we're going to be eating them anyway, they might as well be good =)

Beckett got his two month shots today and he was a little trooper. His latest stats:

Weight: 12.25 lbs ( 63.22%)

Height: 23.25 in (65.08%)

Head: 16.34 in (85.57%) We're still going up!!!! We'll be 99% by 4 months.

What Beckett's into:

*He's found his fingers and gnawing on them is his new favorite pastime.

*Blowing bubbles is a close second

*He's pretty giving with his smiles, especially after he eats and he will talk and talk and coo (He knows he's being cute though.)

*He LOVES to kick kick under the plaything and like his sister, it is MUCH more fun if he can kick off a blanket. When he REALLY gets into it, he makes the Zoolander face.

*He's still eating about every 4 hours and will sometimes go 5 at night.

*He likes to snuggle while sleeping and will usually wake up if you put him down. We're about to start working on this one =)

Trick-or-Treating

I'm going to be honest, by the time we actually got to Halloween this year, I'm a little burnt out. Maybe that has more to do with the fact that I'm still not sleeping a lot more than my holiday-spirit, but I was REALLY hoping it was more fun than last year. Thankfully it was!

We started out the day my glitter painting our tiny pumpkins. Nothing says Halloween like pink glitter pumkins! For your information there is a dog, a cat, and a dolphin on the bigger pumpkin. Of course, you could tell that. I was just making sure. They all tend to look the same.

We headed over to Megan and Keith's for the festivities. We started out at the neighboor's Halloween party/carnival. They have it set up so cute every year and all the kids come over to play games, earn prizes, and get thier face painted. Emmy was VERY in to earning token this year. Since Beckett wasn't having the best day, he opted for his skeleton costume and some snuggles. We'll count next year as his "first" trick or treating event. We headed out and Abby and Emmy couldn't wait to race and see who could ring the doorbell first. Emmy kept just inviting herself into people's houses and into the candy bowls. She also would say "To the next house!!!" everytime they would come back from the door.

There were a few scary things too. One how she said was REALLY scary. THis is her making her scary face in front of the house. She just sat there and stared at it for a long time quietly.

There was also a house that had a "gorilla" sitting by the front door. The kids came up and the "Gorilla" would jump out and scare them. Thankfully, the gorilla was smart enough NOT to jump out at the little girls or we might've had major issues, but it still made a BIG impression on Emmy. After that, she told EVERYONE she met, people at the door she was getting candy from, the nighboors, me, about the gorilla and about how scary it and the other "scary" house she saw was. This video doesn't really do justice to JUST how empatic she was about the gorilla, but at least she can tell you in her own words.

I'm officially DONE with Halloween. It was a fun October but I'm glad we're done =)

Halloween Weekend

We headed down to Galveston for Beckett's first overnight trip and some Halloween festivities (I've got to get my $50 out of this janky pea costume.) I finally got a "princess worthy" picture of Cinderella with a real smile.

It's a "noduh" that I am competitive, so of course we entered the costume contest. I think they planned for 20 people to be there and 500 showed up. It was total mass confusion. In spite of all that, Emmy did a great job! She walked across the stage, waved at everyone, and even blew a kiss or two! Beckett, on the other hand, was over it. Hot pea costume, 10000 people, and waking him up from a nap to put him in the hot pea costume equals another line of my mother-of-the year application. (The ONLY picture of the princess and the pea together.)When not being a $50 pea, Beckett rocked his hard core skeleton duds. It was taking WAAAY too long, so we just left without finding out the winners. This way we can pretend we won =) WE think we had the custest kids there so that's what matters =)

Monster Dance

Emmy is really getting in to dance. She's excited to go every week (ok all two weeks), so I think she's going to continue to love it. This week was the Halloween party and she got to wear her Cinderella costume again. This silly costume has a hoop skirt and she can't even get in her carseat in it, which means we have to put it on wherever we're going. I will NEVER do that again. Sparkle tennis are kind of like glass slippers =)Her class is teeny tiny, only two other girls. Here they all are with their teacher Ms. Carly.

She tought them a "monster dance" for the party that they performed for us. You can see that the one little girl, who is 4, is heads and tails above the other two little girls. Hopefully we'll get there =) For now, she has perfected the "leg scratching" move. (For some reason it didn't pick up the sound but the Monster Mash was playing.. just imagine it)

Trunk or Treat

I have been all excited to get the kids all dressed up in thier Halloween costumes and go to our first real "event" of the season, Trunk or Treat at the church. I have one little princess and one little pea. (Yes he actually let me put this on him!) Silly me, thinking that this Halloween would be any different from last year, I mean, look at the enthusiasm just oozing out of this picture!

The church had it set up very cute where the kids had to play games for their candy, but the kids just weren't feeling it. If you know anything about Emmy, you know that it was all pretty much over after she got the first sucker. This is how she looked for the rest of the night. (Because nothing says pretty princess like falling off crown, orange sucker face, and goopy stick hanging out the side of your mouth.)
We're going to call this a trial run because we have two more costume events before the big day. Hopefully Cinderella will get a LITTLE more excited or we may be doing the real trick or treating in our PJs =)

Firsts

We had a couple of big first over the past two weeks!

Emmy had her first day of baby ballet and she LOVED it. She did lots of floor work with her mouth hanging wide open. Aside from a little time when she hung like a monkey from the ballet barre, she did really well. She liked tap a lot more than ballet though. I guess we'll see as the year goes on. She sure is one CUTE ballerina though!

Beckett also decided to get happy and give us his first "official" smile picture. He's been smiling for about a week before this but FINALLY let me get it on camera. Xantax is a VERY VERY good medicine. Over the past few weeks he talks more and more (but just won't let me get it on camera) and is fairly giving with the smiles, but I will always cherish this first one =)

Continuing with the month o'pumpkins: Carving

Because it's a weekend and that means it's photo-op time, we headed to Betsy and Collin's for the traditional carving of the pumpkins! As tradition has it, Emmy couldn't give a rats about pumpkin carving, but Caroline actually got into it this year!

To be fair, we started pumpkin carving around 4:30 with no naps and in the middle of the Texans game so no one, including the daddies, really cared, but they all humored me. Thank you everyone, for playing nicely.

Caroline decided that she wanted a scary pumpkin and Emmy decided that she wanted a happy pumpkin. The girls actually did play creative director and picked what kind of eyes and nose and even how many and what kind of teeth the pumpkins would have. Here's Caroline making her scary face like the pumpkin. Caroline dug right into the goop and loved it. Emmy wouldn't touch it. Even when I got a spoon she gingerly put it in the pumpkin, pulled out one seed, and said "I'm gonna go swing, ok?" so much for caring! (Blake's traditional pumpkin goop picture)

The finished product turned out pretty well! (This is Emmy's happy pumpkin and happy face and Caroline's scary pumpkin and scary face) Now, we'll see what it looks like by Halloween! Juuuuust kidding.It will be lucky to make it to Tuesday =)

Pumpkin Patch!

Fall is my favorite time of year. I especially love October with all the festivals, cooler (ha!) weather, and of couse photo ops. This year, we ventured just down the street for Beckett's first official fall photo shoot. GiGi and I made the kids (still wierd to type that) matching shirts (See previous post about crafting at Mom's party) and we headed out. I expected MAYBE one picture of Emmy, but I think it went pretty well! Much better than expected.
Emmy said "Those pumpkins are going to see my shirt and say -Hey! That's me!" I think Beckett took the best pic of the day! He didn't even fuss about being laid against a dirty pumpkin. All five cousins looking in the general direction of the camera at the same time! Since about two, Emmy has refused to smile in pictures. I think it's control thing. I have to bribe her with continuously bigger and bigger treats to get anything resembling a smile. I think I got this sassy pose for an ice cream cone. Whatever works!