Halloween Carnival and other fun festivities

 We enjoyed a Halloween Carnival, especially Maxwell.  He had a blast playing all the games and getting candy, of course.

Maxwell and I enjoying the Hayride.  He thought it was pretty cool.

So we were about done but we had bought some tickets to use and hadn't used them.  Maxwell had ZERO interest in riding rides (maybe he remembered when we made him do a ride last year?).   He had zero interest in doing a bounce house...the cotton candy machine was down...so the only thing we were left with was the cake walk.  

I had no idea what a cake walk was until we moved to Texas.  I think it's pretty silly but oh well.  For anyone who doesn't know, it's basically musical chairs but instead of taking a chair away, when the music stops the seats are all numbered and they pick a number.  The person sitting in that seat wins a cake or some type of dessert like brownies or a pie.

At first Maxwell wouldn't do it alone and I had to walk with him but after a couple times (and he wanted to keep going until we won) his confidence was up and he started doing it all alone.

Intently listening for who the winner was

Video - Maxwell doing the cake walk.  He's so little!!

He wasn't disturbed by the other costumes, he was so intent on winning.  Unfortunately we went through all 10 tickets and never won.  :(

At home the baby wasn't too happy that I was trying to give her avocados.  She does NOT like them.  She is so tiny in the high chair!

The 3 boys decorated their pumpkins.

Dad, Maxwell, and his pumpkin - - - a pirate for my little pirate.

Speaking of dressing up, can you find my cute husband in this pic?  

(from when he plays paintball)

Maxwell likes to pull my hair over my shoulder on one side and then say "you look like Elsa, Momma". :)  I sort of love it.

Maxwell has been struggling with staying dry during nap time at school the past 2 weeks and has had two accidents each week.  It's frustrating that they won't put a pull up on him and instead have to deal with completely changing his clothes and bagging up his wet clothes and nap mat (and then I have to wash everything so that it's clean for the next day).  Why not just let him use a pull up!?  ugh

At least he seems to be learning at school.  He is now writing some of his letters and as I've talked about, can write "MAX".  I think his experiences at school helped him do great at the carnival when we were standing in so many lines and he was so patient and well behaved each time.


Emmalyn is struggling with her naps during the day.  It's so frustrating and can take so much effort to keep trying to get her down.  The good news though is that she has no issues at night.  She is still up 2 - 3 times between 11 pm and 7 am to nurse.

She's solid in her ability to sit.  I'll let her just sit there and play for quite a long time.  She will move to her belly if she's done.  She also has the army crawl down.

Emmalyn's Six Month Doctor Visit

Maxwell being sweet with his sister

Always smiling!  

Her first tooth popped through the day after she turned 6 months old!  Her first tooth was the center right tooth on the bottom.  Why can't my kids be late bloomers when it comes to getting teeth?  She got it nearly two months after Maxwell got his first though so I consider it a "win".

Max got this ribbon at swimming lessons for being great at floating on his back.  He was so proud.

She still likes sleeping on her side with her head pushed back and touching something

I got this bow during Shannon's visit thinking it would be cute...until I got it on her head!  My Goodness!  It was HUGE!  I left it on long enough to get a few pictures and that will be the ONLY time it goes on her head.  :)

It's like she can barely keep her head up with that awful flower.

Video - Emmalyn is starting to crawl (or scoot).  She's great at getting her belly up off the floor.

I took Emmalyn to her pediatrician for her 6 month check up.  She was such a happy camper!

Here's the questionnaire I filled out for her

The poor girl had to get shots.  I was able to nurse her right after and help comfort her. 

Here's her stats from her 6 month visit:

Weight: 13 lbs 2 oz, 4th Percentile

Height: 24 in, 2nd Percentile

Head: 16.3 in, 25th Percentile 

She dropped in % on both weight and height and then grew on her head %.  Her doctor has stopped even bringing up how small she is.

I did talk to him about how I feel like she is always congested.  He said that she had a slight cold but that it's common given that we are getting into cough/cold season and she has an old sibling in school.  He said that they tend to get 1 cold a month and the cold lasts 3 weeks so basically she could be sick all winter.  I'm not very okay with that explanation.

He wants me to do the "Infant led weaning" approach to her eating solids.  Basically it means that you don't do as much of the purees and instead give them solids sooner and allow the baby to just gum the food and feed themselves.  We'll see...maybe I'll push a little faster but I'm not about to give her a little piece of steak right now.

3 shots!  No fun.  :(

We visited Mary Ann next door that evening

Mary Ann insisted that we feed her something so she mashed up some bananas for Emmalyn.  Emmalyn loved her first taste of bananas.  It was sweet how excited Mary Ann was to be able to feed her.

I get the crummy mom award - - - I was trimming her nails in the middle of the night while she was nursing and I accidentally cut her finger.  I've never done it this bad with Maxwell or Emmalyn ever before.  I felt so awful. :(

Finally, some food!

Emmalyn turned 6 months old on October 13, 2014.  I can't believe it's been 6 months!  (I'm writing this blog on her first birthday.  Sheesh, I'm behind.  It's crazy and a little empowering to see how far we've come.)

She is such a happy baby

Max made this painting at school.  I was super proud of him because it's finger painting so he must have gotten his hands at least a little dirty.

Mr. Maxwell loves vanilla ice cream cones

The most exciting part of turning 6 months old is she finally gets to eat solid foods!!!  We decided to start out with some rice cereal.

She's so excited that she can't be patient while Momma's stirring

"Ooh!  Give it to me!"

"Not as good as I imagined..."

She grabbed that spoon and shoved it right into her mouth

"Okay, never mind.  This will work."

Same experience, different camera:

Everyone was excited to watch

It's like I wasn't going fast enough and she felt like she had to help me.

Peter walked into the bathroom and caught Max like this.  Glad it was him and not me.  :)

Update on the kids:

EMMALYN

• I swear she says "hi".  There is SO MUCH spit up and drool and not so much talking.  It's still hard to get her to laugh.  She is sitting up longer.  Everything goes in her mouth including her toes.  You can see a tooth coming but it's not broken through,.  She's quite mobile and gets around by rolling and scooting.  She's pushing up on her hands and toes so I figure crawling isn't far away.  She reaches out to touch your face when she wants to love on you - Max lets her do it to him and I find it so sweet.  She will reach for who she wants.  She goes to sleep fastest when there is something touching her head (like a blanket or burp cloth).  She is hard to get down for a nap but is easy to get down at night.  She normally goes to sleep around 8:30 and gets up between 12:39 and 1:39 to nurse and then again somewhere between 4-5:30 am. 

MAXWELL

• We are in the car and Maxwell says, "Mom, do you see that?"  "What?"  "I put it in my nose"  "What, the napkin?!"  "Yes."         Ugh.         "Max you shouldn't put things in your nose."   "It was fun."          Oh boy.
• He is certainly learning new things at school - he has started drawing and coloring objects just not in the lines yet.  He is writing more letters each day and reading more.  He is such a polite boy.  We've had less tantrums lately.  He's also incredibly sweet.  
• He's a pro at our routines and one night told me, "I don't want to go potty, put my pajamas on, brush my teeth, and play on the iPad"
• He loves to dance and also do Peter's or Brit's work out moves. 
• He talks about his skills... His basketball skills, his soccer skills, his running skills... 
• One day he actually wanted to play in Chick-Fil-A's a play place!  I was shocked.  He didn't end up climbing into the playground but still played with the toys on the walls.  That's a big deal.
• He is very concerned about us leaving him lately and if we are getting ready to go out the door he starts getting anxious and saying "don't leave me".  I tell him I'm not going to leave him, he's my partner.  Or if I'm putting on my shoes he will say, "Don't leave without me Momma. "
• He's been giving verbal praise to Peter and I and will say things like, "very excellent" or "incredible"    :)  Makes me smile.