Halloween is in the air...

as is fall... it was nice having a cool day today. I'm still sick, which is not fun. But we went to a Halloween craft party this morning, which was fun. My boys tried out their costumes for the year (we are going as Super Mario bros). I will show my princess costume at a more appropriate time. Meanwhile, I thought they were cute. I even found these gloves that fit 0-3 year olds. They are a little big on Joey, but MJ loves them. He also likes wearing the red had. Actually, both of the hats are a little big on them, but it was the best I could do.
This was a super fun Halloween craft party...thanks Michaela and Mindy!

 

 

 

8 months

Yesterday, our little Joey turned 8 months old. I wish I took a picture of him on that day, but i forgot... so here's one from the day before where he was lunging at me. We actually went to the doctor on his 8 month b-day because I noticed he was pulling on his ears and had a cold a few days ago. No ear infection, but they took his weight. He is 27lb 5oz. I should try to get his length tomorrow morning.

 

And here's Mario after that birthday party I told you about on Monday. You can see his new Doc Hudson car on the step behind him. I'm was proud of the way Mario handled himself today when we had to leave the Franzonello's house. Normally he screams and whines when we have to leave Tony's house. But I talked with him about that before hand (we always talk about this before and after we visit them). But this time he made his sad face (the one where I know he's being honest) and said "But I'm sad when I leave Tony's house" so we talked about that more. Well anyway, this time when we left, he pouted for a little bit, but was able to walk out the door on his own without tears. He was also so exhausted from the fun he had that he didn't follow me out of his room when I put him to bed. He's been consistently good about that with his dad, but only recently getting better with me. Hopefully the next trip we go on in a few weeks won't set us back in the falling asleep department again.

 

The Hanson's Party & more

I meant to catch up and post last night, but I have a cold and decided to go to bed early. We've been having fun lately.

Mario and I are sort of searching to buy a home. We're really not sure what we are going to do, but something may happen in our future: move to Chicago, buy a home here, or just do nothing b/c we like where we are living right now. Just in case, this weekend we dragged the boys around to many houses- so that kept us pretty busy. ND won, finally, so that was nice. Saturday I went to the Catholic Children's Consignment sale and a few more fall clothes for Joey (since we were in Bangkok at this time when MJ was 8-11 months old and didn't need long sleeevs stuff) and some GREAT toys which will probably be seen at Christmas and birthdays next year. Then we saw a few homes and after naps we went to a birthday party for Little Pete and a Thank you party for Big Pete. I think he leaves to return to Iraq today. He was home for about 15 days. He originally left in January and had never seen Joey...so we took a picture of them together (below).

MJ and Joey continue to be so much fun. MJ likes that Joey is crawling and tries to crawl with him. Joey just seems so much bigger and I enjoy sitting back and watching him think about what he wants to do and then going to do it. Of course, I'm not always watching him (I must watch him closer) and have had to retrieve paper from his mouth a couple of times. Oh, and I forgot to mention (or maybe I did) but for a month or so, Joey has been doing the Maam Maaa kind of crying/talking when he's upset or needs me. He doesn't do it all the time, but it's cute to know I'm wanted. And when a friend was watching him last week while I volunteered, he started crawling towards me when I came in the door. He also gets excited for bath time and crawls to the bath tub. Lately, he seems to make more noises when he is playing.

MJ still watches out for Joey and keeps him away from cords and other dangerous things. He is so good at making Joey laugh, and I think they really enjoy being together. He's been to a few birthday parties recently so we've been working on how to handle the emotions of giving someone else a gift and doing the whole party thing. The last party we were at, he got a new die cast Doc Hudson for a party favor (this was definitely a great treat for him!) Lately he has been attempting to negotiate more. For example, he'll say he wants chocolate for breakfast. I'll say no, he'll ask again so I'll say, "Mario, I said no." His response "But I say yes!" It doesn't really get him anywhere, but he tries.

Here are Joey and Pete Hanson

 

Here are MJ and Joey at church this Sunday. Mario insisted we take a picture (even though I reminded him we were in church). It's not the greatest picture b/c he turned off the flash and tried to do it quietly, but he wanted to capture the moment that MJ was trying to sit near Joey and be cozy with his blanket.

 

Here is Joey with 2 of the girls I watch on Monday morning. I think he really enjoys hanging out with them. We see them twice a week for 4-5 hours at a time.

 

Finally, I don't think I've shown a picture of Joey's metatarsis adductus (I think I spelled that wrong but I'm too lazy to go look it up). Basically, his right foot was cramped in the womb and the ligaments were pulled tight because of it. It's common but all we did to fix it was I would stretch it a few times a day. We went to our last appointment with the orthopeadic doctor a month ago and he said things looked great. Sometimes Joey will curl his foot in quite a bit like this, but other times he relaxes it straight. When he does curl his foot in, it makes his big toe look really big.