Love Her!

Aria is the cutest little bug I've ever seen, and she is all personality lately.

Eating Lunch

Wearing Sunglasses

Digging in my church bag

After sneaking a mushroom from the fridge and putting the whole thing in her mouth

She is so happy and playful and fun lately. She still growls a lot, but its babbling a bit more.

We Love this Girl!

Funny Stuff Parker says

Parker sings his ABCs a lot, when he gets to the end, he always says "now my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me" (as opposed to "now I know my ABCs") One time Jason corrected him and said "Now I KNOW my ABCs" with lots of emphasis on the word know. Parker responded: "Now YES my ABCs"

On a related note, we were talking about the change from October to November and Parker decided to call it YESvember.

Parker was making up a song and playing the drums. His song went like this "Aria, the first lady in the world. Aria the only lady in the whole world." (repeated several times) I have no idea where he got it from.

Being 2, Parker still has some letters he doesn't pronounce correctly. He sometimes says 'L' like a 'W'... sometimes.
One morning, I told Parker "I La-la-la-la-la-Love you" Parker said "I la-la-la-la-la-Wuv you"

Parker tried to take my personal progress book from me and I said no, and he said "But I need to check my progress!"

He'll go up to the computer, say "I just need to check my email reeeaaal quick" type for a second and then be 'done'. I wonder where he learned that?

One of my favorites is "Are you kidding me?" "You've got to be kidding me" It's better because it's usually not appropriate:
"What are you eating, mommy?"
"A Bagel"
"Are you kidding me?" (repeated several times)
"You've got to be kidding me"
Parker laughing out loud because clearly 'I'm kidding him'

On Halloween Parker didn't want to get any candy- or eat any treats. I asked him why... "Because the real Peter Pan doesn't get treats" It took some convincing to get him to go ahead and get candy in his pumpkin, even if Peter Pan never eats candy in the movie.

Parker loves learning about letters and letter sounds lately. But he never says monkey starts with 'm'... it's always backwards: "'m' starts with monkey, 'b' starts with balloon" etc.

He randomly blames things on his friends- thinking he can then do whatever he wants. He doesn't want to eat his dinner "Lincoln doesn't like to eat this- it's yucky"... (Holding a pen over his arm) "Asher colors on his skin"... "Sam Barry throws fits" He doesn't have any knowledge to lead him to say these things- but he thinks that if he tells me his friend Lincoln doesn't like his food, then it's okay for Parker not to eat it, etc. It doesn't work, but it is a creative tactic.

Sorry for the picture-less post. I just had to record some of the stuff my funny Parker has said.

How to Unload Groceries

Lately, I love going grocery shopping with my munchkins. Please!! Don't think I'm crazy-- for a little while going to the grocery store weekly with a 1-year-old and a 2-year-old made me want to take a long nap afterwards.
What changed? Aria doesn't take morning naps anymore. So no more rushing out the door in the morning trying to get all the shopping done before time runs out and it's nap time. (naptime+shopping=no good)
No more going to the store after nap time when it's busier and then trying to get home before lunch time when the kids are hungry (hungry kids+shopping=no fun).
I just get ready in the morning, take the kids to the store and shop, and since I'm not on a timetable it's awesome. Most weeks lately both kids walk. (two kids+no getting antsy in the cart=awesome).
They're happier walking slowly around the store pointing at items on the shelf they think look interesting.
It takes forever, but I love letting them be independent. And they love it too!

Plus it is SSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOO dang cute to have Parker (and sometimes Aria) help get something from the shelf and dump it in the cart.

Anyway- the real trouble has been unloading groceries once I get home. If I put the kids inside the house, they either won't stay in, or if they stay inside they throw a fit because I keep leaving (to get more groceries from the car) If they're outside then I'm nervous every time I go in, even for a second- what if they run straight into the street? What if a psycho-kidnapper walks by at that very moment? Unlikely, I know, but I'm a mom- I'm supposed to stress about that!

Well, I finally found a solution:

Parker pretends to drive, and Aria just plays around in the front seat.

They're happy, they're safe, I get the groceries unloaded in no time. It's win-win-win

It seems so simple- but it makes such a difference.

Plus, look how cute they are 'driving' the car (another win!)

15 Months

Aria turned 15 months old yesterday, and went to the Doctor this morning. Overall she is doing well.  She screamed and screamed the whole time the doctor was examining her (same thing for her last two appointments) She cried less when she got her 3 shots.

I was convinced she would move up on the charts for weight, she seems so chubby lately (comparatively, at least) but not so... Here are her stats:

Height: 30-1/2" exactly 50%

Weight: 20lbs 4oz exactly 10%

Head circumference: over the 95th% of course!

She's so skinny, and has such a big head that every time we change clothing sizes it's not because her clothes don't fit her, it's because we can't fit shirts over her head anymore

She is one beautiful big-headed baby, though

More about our 15 month old:

She just broke her first tooth on top- one on the bottom is close, too. Thank Goodness!

She loves music and loves to dance. She'll dance anytime, anywhere. If a car drives by with loud music she dances, when music plays over the speakers in the grocery store she dances, when someones cell phone rings, she dances--- you get the picture?

She barely talks, but she signs and communicates plenty.

She adores her big brother Parker.

She is super messy eater. I mean really, really messy.

She loves to cuddle, but she doesn't really like to sit still, so we get what I call run-by-cuddles. She'll play around, walk by me and cuddle for 3-4 seconds out of the blue and then walk away and play as if she never stopped. It's super sweet. She'll also cuddle lots when she's tired- sometimes it's hard to put her down in bed because I want to just hold her.

She loves baths, washing her hands, and any form of playing in water.

As you can see Aria has a ton of personality- we love her to pieces.



Costumes

Halloween Eve, we dressed our kids up for Trunk-or-Treat

Aria was unhappy to be in her costume at first:

Sad Tinkerbell

 (In her defense, she was also hungry and teething)

Parker was his usual calm self- he talked all day about dressing like Peter Pan, so I know he liked it- he just doesn't often 'act' excited.

We had to take off Aria's costume to buckle her in the car. I LOVE mostly naked babies.

She was much happier the second time she got put in her costume:

 (and adorable)

We had some food and sat around and talked for awhile, then they had a costume parade so everyone could show off their costumes, here's a quick video of Jason taking the kids through the parade.

Ready to Trunk-or-Treat

 

Later that night we had a 1920's themed murder mystery party. Jason and I went with $0 costumes, and just found stuff and tried to make it work.

Jason as Rhett Bumbler, a 20's gambler:

 I'm Donna Wannabe:

The mouth things didn't really have to do with the costumes, but they only took a few minutes to make and I thought they were funny.

We had another party on Halloween- more fun... we had a fun year and we're looking forward to the upcoming holidays

Halloween Stuff

I Love Halloween stuff! It's just so fun.

We took advantage of some free make-and-takes at Michael's during the week leading up to Halloween.

1-A glow in the dark mask, Parker just scribbled instead of drawing the eyes like he was 'supposed' to but I didn't care.

2-A Bracelet, made from Duct Tape. It's adorable

3- Another mask- this one may look crazy, but Parker was VERY specific about how he wanted it, he told be where he wanted what color of glitter and then he helped me squeeze out the glue and stuff. The girl who worked at Michael's and was assigned to do the crafts was cracking up at how very decisive he was about how he wanted his mask.

After I took pictures of him with the mask he had Jason put the mask on...

And took picture with his toy camera:

 We also painted pumpkins.

I just love that he's sticking his tongue out to concentrate while painting.

The finished products, Parker's on the left and mine on the right. While in the store he picked out his pumpkin and immediately said he would use the sticker as a nose.

So Cute!

One of our favorite past times this last month has been going to Target. Parker (and even Aria) really enjoy the Halloween section at Target, so we would often go and just walk the aisles of Halloween junk.

 Taking a closer look:

 Parker 'scaring me' with a ghost and saying BOO.

Coming Soon.... an actual Halloween post, you won't believe how cute my kids are in costume :)

Tolmachoff Farms

For the last two years we went to Tolmachoff Farms before Halloween, and this year we were able to go with my dad (my mom was sick)

My little Pumpkin Heads, with the pumpkins:

 The #1 hardest thing about having two kids: getting pictures where they both are looking in the general direction of the camera.

 To me this picture is Parker in a nutshell:

 So Aria's onesie says "Baby's First Boo" And that's obviously not true since she is almost 15 months old, but she still fits into this 6-9 month onesie- so I had her wear it anyway. (For comparison Parker barely fit this when he was 10 months)

 A Family of Food:

And Parker's favorite part of the whole event for 3 years running: The Corn. They have these giant boxes that have corn and you can play in them like a sand box.

 This year we finally got to make use of the bounce house. Parker is scared to death of these things, but Aria loved it.

 Cute underwear sticking out:

 Driving a tractor:

 Our family of four:

 Grandpa with the munchkins:

Parker also really enjoyed the ducks that swim down the lane when you pump water. Here's Grandpa helping Parker with the water pump.

It was fun. I love Halloween stuff. Thanks Grandpa for going with us!

Peter Pan

Parker Loves Peter Pan.

A Lot

We have a few Peter Pan songs on the iPod. We listen to them at least daily. Parker will run around the living room ("flying"... running in circles with his arms out) and sing all of the words to "You can fly" He has it memorized.

When he requests Peter Pan songs and I just can't handle it anymore- I sometimes let him listen on his own- He listens on what he calls "Hea-Bones" (Head Phones, of course)

One of the best things Parker has learned from Peter Pan is Mr. Darling's phrase "Absolute poppycock" Parker used to say it all the time. It's awesome

We have multiple Peter Pan books. Two are Disney books that have Peter Pan as a part of them, another is a chapter book that we have read more than once (to a two year old) and we had a Peter Pan book from the library- we renewed it the maximum number of times (that's 15 weeks)

We still only let him watch up to 90 minutes each week (Many weeks much less). But he has watched Peter Pan at least once a month. I know that might not seem like a lot for some of you moms who have kids the same movie everyday- but in terms of percentage it's been like 75% Peter Pan.

Watching Peter Pan

Is he cute in that chair or what?

Parker hates haircuts. But I can get him to sit still and stay calm- because he knows that if he does then he can watch Peter Pan when the haircut is over.
And without fail, a few days later he'll tell me that his hair is growing long, so he needs a hair cut. That's how much he loves Peter Pan- he'd be willing to do another hair cut just days later to watch the movie again.

But, what really takes the cake- is when he pretends to watch Peter Pan. That's right, he pretends to watch a movie. He'll pull out his chair and a remote and then talk about the movie while sitting in front of a blank TV.
Hilarious!

He pretends to be Peter Pan often. He'll say "I'm Peter Pan, Daddy is Captain Hook, Mommy is Wendy and Aria is Michael" None of us have to 'do' anything. Parker just likes to think that we are all the characters from the movie.

He loves to 'fly' he always needs a hat when he does it since Peter Pan has a hat.

He loves the scene where Pater lays back with his hat over his face imitating Captain Hook.

"Take her to her people, Mr. Smeeeeeee"

And of course, flying in the swing. Always flying.

For a long time- the only thing he would build with Lego's, or let Jason build with Lego's were "Peter Pan Buildings" or occasionally a pirate ship.

I love this kid and I think his obsession with Peter Pan is adorable.

Can you guess what he is going to be for Halloween??

Thanks mom, for all your help with the costume!