Trick or Treat!!

Last night was Julia's first time going trick-or-treat. (Before now she just went to our family's houses) We went to a nice neighborhood Jerrod's aunt lives in.

We talked to her about it for a few days leading up to it. She was really excited about it and practiced saying "Trick or Treat" all day long. Then when she say her costume a saw it had a stethoscope and everything else, she REALLY got excited!!

Daddy helping her get dressed and showing her that the stethoscope really works!


All dressed and Jude is a lobster, but HATED the lobster hat! Julia's lab coat even had "Dr. Julia" embroidered on it!


At first she was really concerned about all these people wearing scary masks. This was something I did not thing about, otherwise I would have talked to her about it before hand.


She was pretty leary about anybody with a mask on.


This is how Jude went trick or treating. He was not impressed!


After a few houses, she relaxed and REALLY got into it. She started running house to house!


After about 20-30 minutes she had enough. I figured as much. I was just glad she enjoyed it.

Next we went off to the grandparent's houses. She decided Jude needed a checkup and Mimi and Bapa's.


It turned out that all the grandkids ended up at my parent's house, so we tried to get a picture of all seven of them together. We had 3 cameras and took probably 12 pictures and this was probably the best one of the bunch. At least they were all in it!!


Our town does trick or treating tomorrow. We just might take Julia out again if she really wants to do it again. I figured she will tire out again within 30 minutes. This way she gets some use out of the costume. Although she had not taken it off yet since yesterday. (I do get it off of her at night and her into real pajamas!) I suspect that she will be playing with it A LOT!! If we do go trick or treating again, we will not torture Jude again with a costume and just let him ride peacefully in the stroller!

Spelling

Julia is already recognizing her letters and starting to spell things! It is pretty scary that she can do this and she is not even 3 yet!!

Every time we come to a stop sign she says "S-O-P, stop!". I keep telling her that it is "S-T-O-P", but she insists that there is no "T" in it. Then yesterday she was walking around outside with Jerrod. She walked up to the back of our van (which is a Nissan Quest), she pointed to each letter and spelled out "Q-U-E-S-T!". I knew she was getting better about letter recognition, but I did not realize she had gotten that good!!

I really need to spend more time sitting with her working on these things. She really does want to learn!

Little stinker!!

Jude was such a little stinker today. I decided to go have his 3 month pictures taken. Jerry and Debbie were nice enough to watch Julia, so I did not have to deal with her during the picture taking process.

I dropped Julia off at their house and Jude was just a smiling, cooing and laughing at Debbie. So I headed to the photo studio thinking that we would get some really great pictures of Jude with him smiling. Of course, once we get to the studio, Jude REFUSES to smile. He did not cry right away, but he did have a really serious look on his face. They got a couple of pictures and two poses before Jude started screaming. I ended up with 3 pictures to chose from. So I did not order many, especially considering that I have some pretty good ones I took on my camera.

But the kicker of this was, as soon as we were done and back at Jerry and Debbie's, Jude started smiling and giggling again. What a little stinker!!

Waking up happy!

Jerrod's commotion this morning getting ready for work woke Jude up. He started cooing and smiling.

It is so odd to have a baby that wakes up happy and not screaming. Julia ALWAYS woke up screaming. Even now, she rarely wakes up happy. Yet, it is becoming more and more common for Jude to wake up happy with smiles and coos.

Yes, he has colic, and yes, he does scream a lot still, but it is so neat to get those glimpses of happiness Julia never had.

Pumpkin carving!

Julia helped carve her very first pumpkin!!

I had it all set up. Paper on the table, a dremmel for cutting it, a spoon for scooping, etc..

I cut a hole in the top and Julia thought it was neat to see the insides of a pumpkin! I gave her a big spoon and let her try scooping the insides out.




We soon realized that the spoon was not getting the job done, so I showed her how to get the stuff out with your hand.

"This feels funny mommy!"


"Ewwww, that is yucky!"


After that, she ran off to do something else and I was left to finish carving the pumpkin. She did think it was really neat after I got it all done!

Since Jude was awake and not crying, I thought I would try to get a picture of the two of them with the pumpkins.


This is what happens every time I tell Julia to look at me and smile!


Then I thought I would move them next to Julia's big pumpkin. Julia thought Jude needed a leaf hat!!


We are actually going to take Julia Trick or Treating this year, so it should be fun!!

A few quick pictures

These are just random pictures I have taken in the past week or so!

It got cold enough last week that I had to buy Jude a winter hat. I think he looks ADORABLE in it!


My mom found this little bike at a garage sale. It was just Julia's size. I can see many fights taking place among the grandkids for this bike!



Julia loves to sit by Jude. She can barely squeeze into the Bumbo seat.



Stay tuned...... We carved our pumpkin this afternoon. Blog post and pictures are coming soon. but right now I have to see what Julia is into and leave for a hair-cut appointment!

"I like eating cows"

Jerrod is finally starting to feel better (we are pretty sure he had H1N1), but stayed home one last day to rest so he would not relapse. He was feeling well enough to venture out of the house for lunch (I think he was just tired of being stuck in the house for over a week). On the way to lunch we passed some cows in a field. Julia got upset because she missed them. Jerrod thought he would be morbid and told her we were on our way to go eat some cows. He asked Julia if she wanted to eat some cows. She thought this was funny and really wanted to "eat cows".

So we get to the restaurant and order our food. Julia kept saying that we wanted "to eat cows". Once she started eating her food we asked if she liked eating cows. She replied "cows are good, I like eating cows". She kept repeating this over and over!

Jerrod and I were laughing. I think every kid needs to know where their food comes from.

How is it.......

I don't understand how my house gets MESSIER when Jerrod is home. You would think with an extra adult around, the house would be cleaner since their is another adult to help pick up things.

Not in my house. Jerrod is basically just another kid I have to clean up after! By Sunday nights my house is DESTROYED! It takes me the next day or two (or three), before I can get it back in order again.

Now since Jerrod has been home all week, and we ripped the house apart looking for a book that disappeared, it looks like a tornado went through my house. I was toddler-free tonight, but I spent the time catching up on laundry, packing away Jude's too small clothes, and just trying to enjoy some time with Jude. It is so rare that he gets my undivided attention. He was loving it!

Laughing

Jude about had Jerrod and I in tears last night because we were laughing so hard.

Julia rarely, if ever laughed at this age. Her colic was so bad we were just lucky to get the occasional smile. Since Jude's colic is not as severe, we get a lot more smiles and laughs out of him. Last night took the cake.

It was about 11pm, we were in bed, and I had just got done nursing him one last time before bedtime (Jude is always his happiest right after nursing). I was still holding Jude on my lap and he was smiling and cooing. Jerrod rolled over, tickled his belly and Jude laughed at that. So we were smiling and laughing at him laughing and tickled him some more. He then laughs even harder. Which makes Jerrod and I laughing even harder, which just makes Jude laugh even harder. We go back and forth laughing for several minutes. He was laughing so hard he was doing big belly laughs. I was on the verge of tears because I was laughing so hard.

It really warms my heart to see that Jude can be so happy at times.

Ewww, gross!

Jude has been puking a lot more again lately. He spits up every time he eats, but now he will occasionally projectile vomit most everything he just ate.

This afternoon he did the projectile vomiting thing again all over himself and me. I thought I had wiped it all up, only to realize about 10 minutes later (I had not had time to change yet) that I had baby puke in my pocket!!! Nice......

I swear, some days it feels like all I do is deal with body fluids. Between Jude's puking, explosive poos, and peeing on me, and emptying Julia's potty and making sure she wipes well; I am constantly dealing with some sort of bodily fluid. This does not even tat into account the tears and bloody boo-boos! Good thing I grew up on a farm and poo and blood don't bother me.

Yep, they are siblings

Now that Jude has lost his old man look he had when he was born and is filling out more and more. He is REALLY looking like Julia did at the same age. You can definitely tell they are related!

Here is Julia at about 10 weeks old.


Here is Jude at about the same age.


They look VERY similar, don't they? I will have to try to get some pictures of Jude with the exact same poses I took of Julia at the same age.

I'm special!!

I find it funny that BOTH my pedi and chiropractor have told me that my kids were the ONLY babies they have EVER treated for colic that did not get better!! I guess I am just special! This just proves that my kids will never be "normal", but then Jerrod and I are not exactly "normal" either!! I also think this is a good reason to maybe stop at just two kids. It seems that we just make colicky babies!

I touched on this in an earlier post, but my chiropractor brought it up again today. Many people cannot believe how well I have handled dealing with kids with colic (especially with Julia's lasting so long!). My chiro mentioned it again today because Jude was screaming during my appt. He said he has parents come in that are ready to pull their hair out and are just beyond frustrated. He said I had always seemed to deal with it so well. Especially considering they never responded to treatment (when all the other babies did!) and Julia's lasted abnormally long.

I explained to him that Jude's is easy to deal with because we have "been there, done that, lived through it" and will live through it again. It also helps that Jude's colic is not near as bad as Julia's was. He then said that was true, but he was still so impress on how well I did dealing with Julia's. I had to tell him I think it is my history that made the difference. We struggled so much to get pregnant and STAY pregnant, that we were just THRILLED to have kids at all; we can deal with colic.

That is not to say that we did not get frustrated during Julia's colic. Her colic was pretty hard on our marriage because we were both frustrated and took it out on each other. With Jude, I don't think either of us have gotten frustrated yet!! His colic just does not seem to phase us! I guess that is what happens when you are veteran parents of colic.

Pacifier

Jude is not a fan of the pacifier. Julia was not either, but she took it a lot more than Jude ever does. Up until recently, he would only take it maybe 10% of the times we offered it. Now he might take it 25% of the time.

It is frustrating when he is crying and crying and will not take it, but I am also glad he does not like it. This way he does not become depend on it and use it until he is 2! (We took Julia's away around 9 months old because she started throwing it across the room when we would offer it.)

Jude is starting to suck on his hand though. I would much rather him take a pacifier then he become a thumb sucker. At least I can take the pacifier away!

Wants to sit up

Julia was always on the late side of things when it came to learning gross motor skills. She never lagged behind enough that we worried, especially since her language skills were always so far ahead, but she was always a little slower learning her gross motor skills.

I don't think Jude is going to have that issue!! He loves to stand on his legs. And he is starting the motions towards rolling over.

But in the last couple of days he has really wanted to sit up! Anytime I would have him in his bouncy seat or the swing, he will lift his head and entire upper body, trying to sit up more. So I have started to put him in the Bumbo chair several times a day.

I think he is already trying to keep up with his big sister!

Birthdays

Julia is obsessed with birthdays. Today she went up to about 5 complete strangers and asked them when their birthday was. She then proceeds to tell them when her birthday is. "My birthday is when there is snow out!". She also tells everyone when all the rest of our birthdays are. "Daddy's birthday is when there is snow out, Mommy's birthday is when it is hot out, Jude's birthday is when it is hot out", etc..

She is also obsessed with "making" birthday cards. Any piece of paper, mail, etc.. is a birthday card! She will also wrap of toys in a blanket and give it to me saying it is my birthday present! I think Christmas and her birthday are going to be GREAT fun this year!!

When we went grocery shopping last week the only thing she cried about because I would not buy for her was a birthday card! I had to drag her out of the card section with her screaming!

Corn maze

We thought Julia would be old enough to enjoy a corn maze this year. So on Saturday we found one to go to. It was pretty cold out, but Julia thought it was neat to run around in a cornfield. Better yet for Julia, was that her Aunt Ninnie met us there.

Julia telling me that it is really cold out!


Jen will hate me for posting this picture, but I like it because it shows Julia running to keep up with her. Julia was Jen's little tail during the whole thing.


Getting Aunt Ninnie to carry her!



On the observation deck in the middle of the maze. Julia thought it was cold and windy up there!


Putting the puzzle piece on the map. The Maze was divided up in 12 sections, you had to find a mailbox with a puzzle piece in it in each section.



Julia is obsessed with "mail" lately, so she thought hunting for mailboxes was really fun!


All done! I cannot believe we actually did the whole thing. I thought for sure Julia would have been bored with it long before we finished. We were in the maze for about an hour!

Then Ninnie bought Julia and Jude matching pumpkin hats!


How Jude spent the time in the maze. Tucked inside my coat staying nice and toasty! (You can see the blue hat that was on his head poking out.)

Hot Chocolate

Julia has discovered her love of hot chocolate.

After a cold afternoon at the corn maze on Saturday, I decided to make us some hot chocolate when we got home to help warm up. I guess Julia has never had hot chocolate before.

Since Julia will not drink anything warmer than barely lukewarm, I put ice cubes in hers. So every time I would call it hot chocolate, she would say "no, cold chocolate!". LOL She loved it, drank all of it and kept saying how much she liked hot chocolate.

So this morning I asked her what she wanted for breakfast and her reply was "hot chocolate!". I tried to get her to eat cereal or a bagel, but all she wanted was hot chocolate. Being that it was cold and she is spoiled, I made her some!

Christmas List?

We have been getting a lot of Christmas catalogs in the mail lately. I usually just throw them right away, but Julia has started taking them instead. She will sit for a long time just studying them! I think she is already making a Christmas list in her head!!


Jude in his bear ears!

More swimming

Julia is in the middle of another session of swimming lessons. She is such a little fish!



Floating. See just how relaxed she is?!


Look at her swimming!!! They put life jackets on them and they practiced swimming back and forth between the 2 teachers. Julia was an old pro at this since she had been doing this all summer!!


Still her favorite part of swimming class, the froggie slide!


Jude thought it was hot in the pool area and pulled up his pants legs!!

Remembering the babies lost

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.

According to the CDC in 2000 over 15% of pregnancies ended in miscarriage and stillbirth. Most of those parent's grieved in silence since it is something most people don't talk about. When going through my miscarriages I was amazed at how many people told me that they also had a miscarriage(s). For some reason it is one thing that people just keep hushed about. Today is a day to remember those babies.

Although I now have 2 wonderful children, not a day goes by that I don't think about the ones I lost. I no longer grieve for them, they just make me appreciate what I have so much more. That I once thought it was going to be impossible for me to give birth to a living child is what gave me the strength to get through a year of colic with Julia and be grateful for for it. And going through it again with Jude, I am just happy to have a baby, I can deal with the colic.

Since Jude has been born, everyone keeps saying how great it is that we now have one of each. What they don't understand is that we could have cared less if we had two girls or two boys, we were just thrilled to be able to have living children!

I don't talk about my miscarriages much anymore, because frankly, it is depressing to talk about dead babies. I also no longer dwell on them. I have just accepted that they have happened, they will always be a part of me, and appreciate the children I was given.

But on this one day, I take a few moments to remember what we lost.

Clothes sizes

I cannot believe that Jude has almost outgrown all of his 3-6 month clothes and he is not even 3 months old yet!! I guess the makers of the clothes don't count on babies being as big as Jude when they make clothes. Luckily, I did not buy a lot of 3-6 month stuff. Although, I better start buying 6-9 month winter stuff since not much winter stuff currently fits him!

Walk to the park

Yesterday everyone just needed out of the house. Since the weather is supposed to be nasty for the next several days, I thought we better got out while we could.

I had a book that needed to go back to the library and there is a little park behind the library that Julia likes to play at. So I packed up the kids into the stroller and off we went to walk to the library. (About a mile or so from our house.)

Here is our new Sit 'n Stand stroller we bought right before I had Jude. It is really long when the baby carrier is on it (which makes it a little hard to maneuver in stores), but I love it. It rides and pushes nice and easy.


Jude all snuggled in. It was in the mid-50's, so I wanted to make sure he stayed warm.


Julia loves slides.


Although, the static was pretty bad on the slide!!LOL


Ridin' the froggie.


AND my $5.00 find on the way home. There is a kid's consignment store close to me, but the lady smokes inside of the store, so I never buy from it. Well, as we walked past, she had this sitting outside. Julia loves playing with a Sit 'n Spin. So I paid $5.00 for it, carried it home, scrubbed it down with bleach, squirted the barrings with WD-40 (so it would spin easier), and it looked as good as new!


I really need to try to get out of the house on days that are fairly nice. The fresh air and change of scenery does everyone good!

Loves music

Julia LOVES music. She is always singing or asking us to sing or wanting to listen to music, etc.

Yesterday she found my iPod and wanted to listen to it. She even had kid-sized headphones that we tried out for the first time yesterday. It was so cute, she was singing along to the songs.



I love how Julia loves her brother and is constantly sharing with him. I really hope it continues as he gets older. Julia will actually cover up Jude with her precious Blankies and say "Jude likes my Blankies."

The many faces of Jude

I have been determined lately to get a picture of Jude smiling. He seems to be the happiest for the first 5 to 10 minutes after nursing. So I decided to keep the camera right next to were I feed him.

The different smiles....


He gives lots of lopsided smiles too!


Thinking about smiling...


Laughing!


Lips pursed tight, no smile happening....


You can actually see his dimple in this one!