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!

GiGi's Party!

I have been abusing my parents (especially my mom) for the past month since Beckett was born, so we wanted to take a little time this weekend to tell GiGi thank you for all that she does and Happy Birthday! We had a little Mexican food, the traditional ghetto-fab half birthday cake, and did some crafting (A Sansom family favorite!) Happy Birthday MooGigi. We love you!

Sigh....

Tonight we had a "Cofee with the Pastors" meeting at church that you have to go to if you want to join the church. Blake and I thought, "It's an hour, surely we can bring Beckett." Lynn and Bob took Emmy to a concert and we took off. We are either overly ambitious or incredibly stupid (probably the latter.) We're thinking this will be like four people and us. Of course when we get there it's the biggest one ever and there's a good 25 people there. Lovely.

He started out awake and slightly grumpy. About ten minutes into the preacher speaking we broke out the bottle. He grunted and slurped and sucked but stayed relatively quiet, which was all the better to hear the massive blow outs (yes there were several) he helped himself to while he was eating. The poor lady beside me kept saying "Oh my!" and that was just the start...

We had to go around and introduce ourselves. When it got to our turn and Blake was speaking, Beckett let out a huge burp. This from the kid that pretty much refuses to burp. After the belch he started getting fussy so I took him outside to see if I could calm him down. As I'm introducing myself to one of the preachers I feel something warm on my leg. Beckett has projectile vomited down my back and side and there's a nice little pool of spit up on the floor. The preacher nicely volunteered to get me some paper towels.

Since at this point I"m pretty much mortified, I stay outside the room. He's somewhat calm until the preachers wife comes and introduces herself and basically steals him from me. Which I know is a TERRIBLE idea. Of course he starts screaming his head off. Then she KEEPS TALKING instead of letting me walk around with him. This goes on for a good 10-15 minutes even though there's an increasing look of panic on my face. Finally when she does walk in her husand (the preacher) says, "late as usual!" She says "I was taking care of the baby" and he says "Yes, we know we can all hear him."

So in the course of about 45 mintues Beckett did just about everything that was disgusting, disruptive, and foul. We MIGHT still get to join the church. I don't know. I guess everyone will remember us now. Oh yea! You're the ones with the kid that farted/burped/threwup/screamed at the class! GREAT!

First Month Stats

Well, I knew it was too strange to be true..Beckett's head is now in the 75th percentile. I knew there was no way it would stay below average. He's growing everywhere or there was some questionable measuring happening earlier.
Weight: 10 lbs 7 ozs ( 62nd %)
Length: 21.5 inches long ( 49th %)

So he's a chubby short little dude with a growing head =) and he's all mine.

The doctor also gave us some hope around Beckett's zero fun status, reflux. While I'm not excited about this, at least maybe we can make it get better!

Sam turns 1!

This weekend we celebrated Sam's big 1st Bday! She is such a sweet and funny little chunky monkey. Emmy ran and played with her cousins and Beckett (as usual) screamed his head off. I don't know if he'll be invited to the next one!

Poor Sam had a LOT of help digging into her cake.
But she kicked everyone else out pretty quickly and got into it!

The Blur of Weeks 2-4

I think I will look back on these weeks I will remember this..,

ok, a few other things too, but there was (still is) a lot of this. Having two kids is EXPONENTIALLY harder than having one kid. One now feels like a cakewalk. And I'm realizing that perspective is everything. Emmy used to feel like a little girl and now feels like a giant. I USED to think I was tired and now I realize I was nowhere NEAR that. Beckett is a sweet little guy, but faked us out in the chill department. He's not earning many "fun" points, but hopefully this is a phase we'll grow out of (Please!) During the day he's pretty much an angel and we do a lot of this, but at night there's a lot of screaming. He also won't stay asleep unless he's being held. I think the drama must be genetic.

I think we have set the record for most doctor's visits in a three week period. After two doctors and a dentist, we have confirmed that Emmy's mysterious mouth issue was pretty much straight drame. I almost cried at the ENT (literally) when they told me nothing was wrong. Now, at week 4 Emmy's got two ear infections and a sinus infection/chest cold with antibiotics and steroids and is still waking up all night every night. I realized that I went arounf 23 consecutive days with less then 4 hours of sleep. This month has been like one long continuous day sometimes interrputed by few hours laying the dark listening to three people snore and hearing the fan (which will be replaced) clink.

Still, we're managing (with an absurd amount of help from family) and I'm learning that the best way to get used to doing anything is to just do it. I will start having two kids all by myself this week and guess what, I bet this month is about to feel like a cakewalk =)

My favorite things about my little man:

• When he's going to sleep he makes little smiles, one half smile and then a full really big open mouth (a la Vacek) one. He has a beautiful smile. I can't wait to see it for real.
  


• He gives the best shoulder snuggles. When he snuggles you he rubs his hand up and down your arm
  


• His toes/feet. They're just cute
  


• He's VERY strong. He's already holding up his head really well and is adamant that HE holds it up on your shoulder. Not you. And he WILL head butt you.
  


• He has the same open mouth gene that his daddy has. I already have too many pictures of them siting together with their mouths hanging open.
  


• He makes CRAZY noises in his sleep. Grunt, squeals, laughs, groans... pretty much all night long.
  


• He eats like a pig and has chunked up pretty nicely with all kinds of new rolls and chins.
  

The list of crazy and cringe-inducing places that I would never have DREAMED of taking Emmy in her first month of life that he has already been to include. I guess that's the life of a second child!

• a walmart bathroom



• IKEA



• Out to eat three times (once with a band so loud we needed earplugs)



• four different germy doctor's offices and a dentist office



• the beach
  


• Daycare (just to drop Emmy off....but still!)

Emmy loves her little brother. She call him "Little Bucky". She's also found a new love for diapering. EVERYTHING gets a diaper.

She's still pretty needy on Mommy time and like all little kids, wants to be right up in his face and poke his eyeballs, but she loves him. We're leaning how to mulitask play with her.

Everynight before she goes to bed she says goodnight to him and on her own with no prompting says "I love you Little Bucky." That about melts my heart. I love my sweet little family. Look at this cuteness... It's all worth it!

Cupcakes! One Month

Continuing our tradion, we celebrated Becket's first monthday with a pumpkin cupcake... like his Sister, he wasn't really all that excited about it... ok, he screamed his head off. We are coming to learn that Beckett HATES pictures. HATES.

First week home

It's been a CRAZY first week!

Beckett has impressed us with what a sweet boy he is. He's super snuggly, eats well, sleeps well, and generally hasn't been a problem at all! He's happy to eat, look around a while and practice holding up his head, and then snooze. Amazingly it's his sister that's keeping us up at night with a mysterious "mouth pain" that's meant I've been to the doctor four times in the 5 days that Beckett has been home and is waking up every hour crying. Beckett is sound asleep for four hour stretches and Emmy is waking up. All I can say is thank goodness for that and GiGi. (If she wasn't SO cute!)

I've blown through all the C-Section "don't's" pretty quickly, but I think those are pretty much for people with no other children. How on earth are you not supposed to drive, lift, climb stairs, or be anything more than a bump on a log with a two year old? Needless to say, Mommy is TIRED!

Beckett is also running though his "firsts"....

First thing home from the hospital he got to watch his first Aggie game with Dad. (Blake has been planning this since we scheduled the C-Section)

He had his first bath: He also had his first (and second) doctor's visit. His important stats:

• Weight: 7 lbs 1 oz


• Height:20.25 in (magically he shrunk a quarter of an inch from when he was born)


• Head size: 36% Yes, you read that correctly! Blake and I have a child with a BELOW AVERAGE head size!!! How this happened, I'm not quite sure.

At the next doctor's appt 2 days later: (we're still not sure why we had to have two so close together)

• Weight: 7 lbs 10 oz (the boy likes to eat!)


• Height: 20 in (at this rate he's going to disappear by the time he's a year old he's shrinking so quickly)

Other than going to the doctor and watching football, Beckett spent his time just being cute, which really isn't that hard at all!