Catherine and Mary had a "super duper fun" Halloween. They wore their costumes to church, then we took a little break, then they went "truck-or-treating" around the neighborhood and handed out candy when we got home.
This is the princess Catherine wanted to be:
Even more important than the dress were the earrings, bracelet, and bow. I think we did a pretty good job! (The earrings are missing in this picture because it was right after she lost the first pair, but before she noticed she had lost them which is why she isn't crying hysterically.)
I added gloves because I knew it would be cold, but it ended up not being enough because it was really cold, so after the trial run outside yesterday I came back in and sewed a capelet.
That was enough to get to church, although we did have to add a shirt and sweater underneath the whole thing for trick-or-treating in the evening because it was really windy and even colder. Overall I'm pretty sure Catherine was happy with it. (My first clue was the time she ran into the bathroom to look in the mirror and shouted out "I look PERFECT Mom!")
Mary wanted to be a purple butterfly. I made the frame for the wings when she was sleeping one night, and they ended up being much too big so I had to scale them down a little bit. Much better!
She had a wonderful time flying around everywhere!
At church this morning Michael asked the kids to come up to the front to show off their costumes and Mary burst out of the back where we were standing and zoomed a lap around the whole room. Hilarious.
Before we went trick-or-treating Mary noticed the candy bowl waiting by the door.
She decided to inspect it thoroughly.
Maybe we should take a closer look.
Yep, still looks delicious.
When we got home Mary laid out all her candy at least a dozen times, asking the name of each one and arranging them carefully.
And this morning I remembered that Michael Jr has a sweater with a teddy bear hood and shoes with bear feet on the bottom and that the two together could almost pass as a costume.
He's adorable either way.
Will someone please tell me which of the three pictures below to keep and delete? My October picture folder is out of control. Thanks!
I spent the whole day making Halloween costumes (pictures tomorrow). Mary asked to be a purple butterfly, and Catherine wanted to dress up exactly like a princess in one of her coloring books. She did not want to dress up like one of the princesses whose princess dress we already own, or one of the well-known princesses for whom dozens of toddler-sized costumes have been made. She just wanted a dress and a bow and a bracelet and earrings like the one on the cover of her coloring book. Twelve hours later: complete princess outfit with accessories (and even extras due to the cold) and purple butterfly wings and antennae are done. Now that the kids are in bed I just have to replace the first set of earrings that Catherine lost today and wash the purple pants that go with Mary's outfit. What about Michael Jr, you ask? He's taking a rain check until next year when he cares. It happens when you're third.
But here are some pictures of him, even if not in costume, lest you think I've forgotten about him completely.
Michael Jr stands up most of the day now. He had his first major tumble as a result of trying to stand up without holding on yesterday, and although it looked really bad at first (lips bleed a lot) he mostly seemed fine today. This picture was long before the lip-meets-bed-frame tumble. He loves to crawl over to the green box that contains all the girls' kitchen and pull on it until it all dumps out, then one of his sisters is usually kind enough to dump it the rest of the way and flip it over so he can use it to stand up.
Usually when he's standing up his head is whipping back and forth as he tries to follow the fun his sisters are having. They were nice enough to entertain him at a standstill for once.
Can you see all those teeth just below the gums? By the way he grinds his face into my shoulder anytime he gets close to me I'm guessing the top two are going to erupt any day. Night time is super fun right now.
I'm pretty sure every little kid does this at some point, and I'm surprised it took mine this long to come up with it. But I sent Catherine and Mary into their room after their bath tonight to get pajamas on and after much giggling they both came bursting down the hall with underpants on their heads (and none on their bottoms). I succeeded only in convincing them to put underpants on their bottoms so I could take sharable pictures. You're welcome.
(Forgive the picture graininess. It's stupid winter which means it's stupid dark at stupid five o'clock and I'd rather tolerate graininess from using the max ISO on my camera than the stupid flash. Stupid winter.)
What is Catherine doing here? I have no idea.
But I really love how her hair is sticking out through the leg holes here.
They are really going to regret they did this when they're 13.
But Daddy was proud of them.
Michael Jr had no idea what was funny, but he really wanted to join the club.
The temperature dropped quite a bit last week and I was kind of enjoying snuggling the kids up for naps and bed time.
Then I wanted to take Michael Jr with me out on a jog and realized I still didn't have any winter hats his size that weren't pink and frilly. So I decided to whip one up with a bit of yarn from my highly neglected craft tower.
For the record, it is not prudent for me to craft spontaneously. I require planning. And patterns. "Off the cuff" crafts have never worked out for me (much like off the cuff cooking) and yet it always seems like a good idea to me at the time.
The good news is that the end result was a basic hat-shaped bundle of yarn that on some level is the size of Michael's head. However I managed to shape it more like a tea cozy than a tapered winter hat, and to me it looks like he is headed out to live on the Russian tundra (if there is such a place).
Luckily for Michael, he obviously has no idea and no care for his appearance. Plus the next day his friend Tristan offered to share a couple knit (boy) hats that he has outgrown, so we won't have this pumpkin cozy marring otherwise perfectly cute pictures all winter. I think even Mother Nature felt sorry for him having to wear this - it was in the 60s today.
I don't have anything new to tell you today. I have no idea what Mary's name is, Michael is climbing on things and falling down, Catherine is putting 14 barrettes in her hair, asking to listen to some music, and showing me a new way to skip.
Since I don't have anything new I thought I'd show you something old. Here are three archived posts, one from this week in each of the last three years.
This week in 2009: Twirl Dancing! Grandma's here! I don't think the girls have managed to tire her out yet, but if they keep this up, they might:
Mary had her 15 month check-up Friday morning and she is healthy and smart and perfect like we all knew. She's now almost 32 inches tall and just over 22 pounds. She said "hi" to the doctor and showed off her twirl dancing for him, and didn't even start to cry until her third shot. Catherine insisted that she did not need any "pokes" but still did a very good job getting her flu shot without throwing a fit or even crying during the shot. She did give the nurse a good glare and told her afterwards "I said I don't need any pokes!" but that was the extent of her objection.
It looks like a cool and cloudy weekend, but with a new tent/tunnel and a lovely recorder, among other things, I think the girls and grandma will find a way to keep busy.
This week in 2008: Lips - where are ooooooo? We've been slowly settling back into our routine since Grandma and Grandpa left Friday afternoon. Catherine seems to be doing OK - I had to take her downstairs Saturday morning in order to convince her that Grandma and Grandpa weren't just still sleeping, but other than that she seems to remember saying bye-bye to everyone. She does randomly remember our visitors sometimes. She saw one of Michael's tennis shoes on the floor and said "Uncle Tommy! Outside!"; she found some chapstick in my purse and said "Aunt Jena? Where are you?"; and when Michael was playing guitar the other day and we were in another room so Catherine could only hear it, she told me matter-of-factly "Uncle Chris guitar." She also just starts saying goodbye to people again sometimes - she'll be playing happily and then look up and say "Bye Gigi! Bye Heather! Bye Gramma! Bye Je-na! Bye Mamo! Bye Grandpa! Bye Uncle Chris! Bye Uncle Tommy!" - seriously, she goes through the whole list, and sometimes also throws in some friends she hasn't seen in a while. Also, since she decided she was going to figure out how to tie Grandpa's shoes for him, she is really into untying and "tying" my shoes for me.
Other than that Catherine spent most of the weekend on her usual: playdough, guitar, pushing her shopping cart (now full of plastic fruit which she totally loves) and putting chapstick on herself and everyone in the house hundreds of times a day - you know she's coming because you hear "Lips! Lips! Lips!" as she charges towards you with chapstick outstretched. There will be no chapped lips in our house this winter (and it is nearly winter - our heat came on last night as it went down to 40 overnight). It's also really funny when she temporarily misplaces the chapstick because she walks around the house saying "Lips...where are oooo??"
Mary has a bit of a cough the last few days, but she doesn't have any other signs of sickness and is as happy as ever. She also learned to blow raspberries the other day (thanks Daddy).
This week in 2007: Happy 9 Months!
Catherine was so excited about being 9 months old that she couldn't sleep - seriously, no naps today at all. For some strange reason, bedtime this evening was a bit on the early side...
More of the same from Miss Catherine lately: she wants to stand up all the time, walk around holding on to someone's hand, flip the pages of books, and eat. Oh, and recently she decided she likes sucking on metal. She can spot a set of keys anywhere in the room, and the other day when she was playing in one of the cupboards I turned around to see her standing up and licking the metal hinges on the cupboard door. She also likes sucking on the metal end of electronic wires.
Of course she still likes exploring outside, especially now that there are lots of acorns and leaves on the ground. Sunday Catherine found a particularly appealing leaf while we were working off some energy before church - she carried it around for quite some time, then crushed it. This must have put her in a pleasant mood, because soon after when we went back inside she allowed a man she had never met before to be her hand-holder for walking, and then she also let him pick her up! I almost fell over in shock, especially considering that she is getting even more clingy at home.
After church we went to see a friend's new baby, whom Catherine ignored with ease, and then we went to the park because it was a super warm and lovely day. Catherine seemed like she had a good time walking around, swinging, and sitting on the bouncy dinosaur. She actually stopped mid-motion a few times when she was reaching for some mulch to eat and I told her "No." She definitely is getting the idea of the meaning, but usually when you tell her "no" she stops what she is doing just long enough to turn around and smile at you before continuing on with her original plan.
Both Catherine and Mary were early walkers and had their share of falls, bumps and bruises (if you look very closely Catherine has a small scar on her lower lip from falling on her face and pushing a tooth through her lip when she was about a year old, and Mary's climbing phase left her with a string of bruises and baseballs growing out of her forehead for weeks). However watching Michael Jr clamber around makes those episodes look docile. He no sooner figured out how to sit up and crawl than he decided he should also be climbing and standing. In the last few days he has used a toy box, the bath tub, a chair, and the coffee table to pull himself up to standing. The coffee table is his worst idea because once he is standing he likes to pound on it like a drum, which means letting go with both hands (because you have to drum with both hands) which means he immediately falls over, usually hitting his face on the edge of the table on the way down. Someone send a helmet - he is headed for a great fall.
It also took him about four seconds to figure out how to climb into the mini-recliners.
Step one
And done.
I would try to have a talk with him about how he's only six months old and it wouldn't be a bad idea for him to give his little noggin a little more time for bump-free development, but as you can tell from the look on his face, his namesake must have already explained to him the cardinal rule of boyhood: never listen to your mom when she's talking matters of safety.
I spent almost the whole past week playing with the kids, and I didn't pick up my camera at all. I would apologize for the lack of pictures, but it was fun just to play and I'm not actually sorry. :)
However I did have an irresistible impulse to take my camera with me when we went outside to play this afternoon. Withdrawl.
When you tell my children to look at you for a picture, they do this. I'm not sure what this says about their listening skills (or my parenting skills).
Inspired by taking care of Michael Jr, Catherine and Mary have been taking turns being "Mama" when they play. All day I hear them yelling "Mama" but every time I respond they say, "No, I don't mean you mama." It turns out when they really do want me, they say "The Other Mama."
In fifteen years we are going to look at Mary's senior pictures and she is going to be wearing this same signature picture smile.
Catherine likes to fly.
She also likes to sing
Rock out
And climb trees.
Michael Jr thinks sitting up is awesome
Likes touching plants
And he really wanted to crawl around on the driveway to chase the big wheel, but I think it was hurting his knees because he kept resorting to his plank pose instead.
